Morphological and biochemical changes associated with apoptosis induced by okadaic acid in human amniotic FL cells

Abstract The marine toxin okadaic acid (OA) is an apoptosis inducer and a tumor promoter. During recent years, extensive studies have demonstrated that OA can induce apoptosis in a wide variety of cell types. In contrast to the relatively longer incubation time or higher treatment concentrations of OA in apoptosis shown previously, relatively lower concentrations (≤100 nM) and shorter time (4 h) were designed in the current study to observe the toxic effects of OA in human amniotic cells (FL cells). The present study was undertaken to determine the morphological and biochemical changes of FL cells induced by OA. Results indicated that externalization of phosphatidylserine, cytoskeletal disruption, DNA strand breaks and decrease of Bcl‐2 protein expression levels as well as increase of PP2A‐A subunit protein were all involved in the apoptosis of FL cells induced by OA. This work not only provided further evidence of apoptosis induced by OA but also suggested that PP2A might play a pivotal role in apoptosis induced by protein phosphatases inhibitors. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Environ Toxicol, 2009.