Abstract: PURPOSE: To study the potential mechanism of propofol on proliferation, migration, invasion and apoptosis of human pharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma FADu cell line. METHODS: Different concentrations of propofol (0, 5, 10, 20 μg/mL) were used to treat FADu cell line. CCK-8 toxicity test and plate clone test were used to test cell proliferation ability. The ability of lateral migration was detected by wound healing assay. Transwell assay was used to detect the ability of longitudinal migration and invasion. The expression of Bcl-2,Bax and Cleaved Caspase-3 was detected by Western blot. SPSS 18.0 software package was used to analyze the data. RESULTS: Cytotoxicity test showed that the survival rate of FADu cell line decreased in a time and concentration dependent manner (P<0.01) after treatment with different concentrations of propofol. The results of plate clonal assay showed that cell proliferation decreased with the increase of propofol concentration(P<0.01). Wound healing assay showed that the lateral migration ability of cells treated with propofol of 10 and 20 μg/mL was significantly different from that of the control group (P<0.05). Transwell test showed that propofol effectively inhibited the ability of longitudinal migration and invasion (P<0.001) in a concentration dependent manner. Western blot analysis showed that the expression of Bcl-2 decreased and the expression of Bax and Cleaved Caspase-3 increased significantly(P<0.01). CONCLUSIONS: Propofol inhibits the proliferation, migration and invasion of FADu cells, and promotes apoptosis by inhibiting Bcl-2/Bax pathway. The mechanism may be through promoting the expression of Caspase-3.

Key words: Propofol, FADu, Invasion, Apoptosis