Carnosine retards tumor growth in vivo in an NIH3T3-HER2/neu mouse model

Molecular Cancer

Research

Rolf Gebhardt¹  Beate Fuchs²  Kathrin D Geiger³  Christof Renner⁴  Nadine Zemitzsch⁴  Frank Gaunitz⁴  Jürgen Meixensberger⁴  Matthias Hermes⁵  Jan Hengstler⁵ 

[1] Institut für Biochemie, Universitätsklinikum Leipzig und Medizinische Fakultät der Universität Leipzig, 04103, Leipzig, Germany;Institut für Medizinische Physik und Biophysik, Universitätsklinikum Leipzig und Medizinische Fakultät der Universität Leipzig, 04103, Leipzig, Germany;Institut für Pathologie, Technische Universität Dresden, 01307, Dresden, Germany;Klinik und Poliklinik für Neurochirurgie, Universitätsklinikum Leipzig und Medizinische Fakultät der Universität Leipzig, 04103, Leipzig, Germany;Leipniz-Institut für Arbeitsforschung, TU Dortmund, 44139, Dortmund, Germany;

关键词: Human Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor;    Malignant Glioma;    Carnosine;    Dorsal Skin;    Female Nude Mouse;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1476-4598-9-2

 received in 2009-09-25, accepted in 2010-01-06,  发布年份 2010

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundIt was previously demonstrated that the dipeptide carnosine inhibits growth of cultured cells isolated from patients with malignant glioma. In the present work we investigated whether carnosine also affects tumor growth in vivo and may therefore be considered for human cancer therapy.ResultsA mouse model was used to investigate whether tumor growth in vivo can be inhibited by carnosine. Therefore, NIH3T3 fibroblasts, conditionally expressing the human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2/neu), were implanted into the dorsal skin of nude mice, and tumor growth in treated animals was compared to control mice. In two independent experiments nude mice that received tumor cells received a daily intra peritoneal injection of 500 μl of 1 M carnosine solution. Measurable tumors were detected 12 days after injection. Aggressive tumor growth in control animals, that received a daily intra peritoneal injection of NaCl solution started at day 16 whereas aggressive growth in mice treated with carnosine was delayed, starting around day 19. A significant effect of carnosine on tumor growth was observed up to day 24. Although carnosine was not able to completely prevent tumor growth, a microscopic examination of tumors revealed that those from carnosine treated animals had a significant lower number of mitosis (p < 0.0003) than untreated animals, confirming that carnosine affects proliferation in vivo.ConclusionAs a naturally occurring substance with a high potential to inhibit growth of malignant cells in vivo, carnosine should be considered as a potential anti-cancer drug. Further experiments should be performed in order to understand how carnosine acts at the molecular level.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Renner et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2010. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.