Glargine promotes proliferation of colon cancer LoVo cells via ERK1/2 activation in vitro

TENG Jia-an; QIN Jian

doi:10.3969/j.issn.1674-3806.2015.10.01

Abstract：Objective To observe the roles of glargine on colon cancer LoVo cells in vitro and to investigate the potential mechanisms.Methods Colon cancer LoVo cells were treated with different concentrations of glargine and human insulin.Proliferation of the cells treated with glargine was assayed by CCK8.Apoptosis in the treated cells was measured by flow cytometry.The protein expression of ERK1/2 in treated cells was determined by Western blot. Results Glargine(20,50,100,150,200 nM) dramatically increased the LoVo cells number.Compared with the con-trol, both glargine(100,150,200 nM) and human insulin(100 nM) as the positive control induced significant cells proliferation( P<0.05 ) .The rate of cell early apoptosis in the control was 13.26%, while the rate decreased to 11.52%, 9.11% and 6.08% after the cells treated with glargine at 100, 150 and 200 nM, respectively.After ERK1/2 inhibitor PD98059 was added into LoVo cells, proliferation was not induced by glargine and early apoptosis rate was not innduced.An increase in glargine(200 nM) stimulated p-ERK1/2 occurred in a time and dose depend-ent manner.However, the total protein levels of ERK1/2 remained unaffected throughout the course of these experi-ments.Conclusion Glargine can induce the proliferation of colon cancer LoVo cells in vitro.ERK1/2 signal path-way activation may be the potential mechanism.