Biology and Medicine

Abstract

GHRH-R Expression Level under Hyperglycaemic Like Culture Conditions in Breast Cancer Cell Lines

Sara Hesham Amer Awad, Mira Emad ElDin Abd El Aal Mohammed Ibrahim, Gazala Afreen Khan and Samrein BM Ahmed

Background: Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a complex disease and increments in its prevalence have been reported in the last few years. DM does not only affect the cells by disturbing glucose metabolism, but also it leads to serious health disorders such as cardiac ischemic diseases, hypertension, and infertility. Intriguingly, DM was also found to mediate cancer development and progression. The exact mechanism of how hyperglycemia affects cancer cells is still obscure. Growth hormone releasing hormone receptor (GHRH-R) is a G-protein coupled receptor that was shown recently to enhance breast cancer cells proliferation. Moreover, a recent work revealed that GHRH-R is upregulated in diabetes mellitus in a rat model. It was of interest to investigate whether hyperglycemic conditions have any impact on the GHRH-R expression in breast cancer cell lines, which might then affect the cell proliferation.
Methods: MDA MB 231 and T47D breast cancer cell lines were treated with either 15 mM glucose or 15 mM fructose. The expression of GHRH-R was assessed by western blotting and immunofluorescence. The proliferation of the cells was studied by MTT assays.
Results and discussion: The generated data showed that the GHRH-R affected MDA MB 231 and T47D breast cancer cell lines proliferation upon growth hormones treatment but not under hyperglycemic conditions. The results suggested that GHRH-R might mediate breast cancer cells proliferation and survival among other factors.