Abstract: Abstract: Objective To investigate the effects of chloroprocaine (CP) on the methylation status and the expression of CDH1, APC and P16 genes in human cervical cancer cell lines HeLa and CaSki. Methods HeLa, CaSki and the normal human cell HUVEC cultured in vitro were exposed to different concentration (0, 1, 1.5, 2, 3 and 4 mmol/L) CP. The growth inhibition of the three cell lines treated at 48 h, 72 h and 96 h were studied by MTT assay. The three cell lines were all treated by the certain concentration CP which inhibited the growth of HeLa and CaSki significantly but not affect the growth of HUVEC apparently. The methylation status and the expression of CDH1, APC and P16 genes in the three cell lines were analyzed by methylated specific-PCR (MSP) and RT-PCR, respectively. Results After treated by 1.5 mmol/L CP for 96 h, the inhibition rates of HeLa and CaSki were (66.17±5.82) % and (69.12±6.89) %, which were significantly higher than that of HUVEC, (21.78±3.12) %. CDH1, APC and P16 genes were all demethylated at different level and mRNA expression of the three genes were recovered or increased in HeLa and CaSki cells after treated by 1.5 mmol/L CP for 96 h. Conclusion CP could inhibit the growth of HeLa and CaSki cells, meanwhile, it could demethylate CDH1, APC and P16 genes and recover or increase the genes’ expression in the two cervical cancer cells.

Key words: Chloroprocaine, Cervical cancer, Tumor suppressor genes, DNA methylation