Synergistic antitumor effect of combined paclitaxel with FEN1 inhibitor in cervical cancer cells

•Targeting FEN1 can be used as a novel strategy for cervical cancer therapy.•FEN1 inhibitor SC13 sensitized cervical cancer cells to paclitaxel treatment.•Cervical cancer cells can be eradicated by the synergistic treatment of FEN1 inhibitor SC13 and paclitaxel. Studies on cervical cancer are urgently required to improve clinical outcomes. As a major anticancer drug for cervical cancer, paclitaxel has been used for many years in clinical therapy but its therapeutic efficacy is limited by common obstacle from cancer cells. The enhanced DNA repair pathways of cancer cells have been proved to survive DNA damage induced by chemotherapeutic drug. Inhibitors of specific DNA repair pathway can sensitize cancer cells to the treatment of chemotherapeutic drugs. In this paper we found that the effect of paclitaxel can be significantly improved when used in combination with FEN1 inhibitor SC13, suggesting a synergistic mechanism between the two compounds. Our studies suggest that FEN1 inhibition could be a novel strategy of tumor-targeting therapy for cervical cancer. Our work also revealed that paclitaxel demonstrates stronger synergistic effect with SC13 than other common used chemical drugs such as doxorubicin, carboplatin or camptothecin on cervical cancer cells.