Antimigratory effect of berberine in T98G, U87MG and primary glioma cell culture.

e15045 Background: Berberine is an alkaloid compound with a structure that is highly similar to that of intercalating agents. It affects numerous cell signaling pathways and is widely studied as potential anticancer drug. It is known that berberine affects cancer cells migration through metalloproteinase-2 inhibition, but this effect was never studied on glioma cells. Anti-migratory drugs are of special interest in brain cancer therapy since glioma's highly invasive nature makes total surgical removal of tumor practically impossible. The aim of the study was to evaluate berberine anti-migratory activity on glioma cells. Methods: Cell migration capacity of T98G and U87MG cell lines, as well as primary glioma cell culture established in our laboratory, was assessed via standard wound healing assay with automated image acquisition and analysis on Lionheart FX (BioTek) cell imager. Prior to assay setting up cell cultures were maintained in DMEM medium with L-glutamine (1 μM) (Gibco) and 10% FBS (Gibco) at 37C 0 and 5.0% CO 2 . Cells were seeded at 250 000 cells per well on 24-well plates and incubated overnight in order to attach to plate bottom. After that a vertical wound was made manually in each well, and berberine was added to experimental wells to final concentration 50 mg/L. Plates with cells were continuously incubated and photographed in cell imager at 37C 0 and 5.0% CO 2 . The extent of cells migration was measured as the percent of wound area decrease after 24 hours of incubation in relation to starting time point. Data are given as: Mean ± 95% confidence interval. Results: In our study we berberine exhibited anti-migratory activity in all cell cultures under study. In rather fast growing primary cell culture wound area decrease was 99.23%±0.62% in control sample and 91.75%±0.28% in experimental sample. The difference was small but significant at p < 0.001 level (df = 30). Popular permanent glioma cell lines T98G and U87MG showed more prominent decrease in studied parameter with higher degree of variance at the same time. In T98G wound area decrease was 71.6%±12.3% in control and 48.8%± 7.6% in experimental samples after 24 hours of cultivation in presence of 50 mg/L berberine. While U87MG demonstrated 60.28%±5.13% and 37.5%± 8.34% wound area decrease accordingly. The obtained difference between control and experimental groups in permanent cell cultures was statistically significant at the 0.05 level (df = 30). Conclusions: Our preliminary research proved berberine to be potent anti-migratory agent in glioma treatment. Further investigations are needed to evaluate its ability to inhibit glioma cell expansion in vivo.