Effects of metformin on human bone-derived mesenchymal stromal cell-breast cancer cell line interactions

Early human evidence such as case series or small samples is exploring possible benefits.

• Level A · Stronger Clinical Evidence
• Level B · Emerging clinical evidence with positive signals
• Level C · Early human research exploring benefits
• Level D · Scientific groundwork from lab and animal studies
• Emerging · Emerging topic under active research

Abstract (original English)

Metformin is used to treat patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus and was found to lower the incidence of cancer. Bone metastasis is a common impairment associated with advanced breast cancer. The present study investigated the effects of metformin on human bone-derived mesenchymal stromal cells (BM-MSC)-breast cancer cell line interactions. BM-MSCs grown from box chisels were tested for growth-stimulating and migration-controlling activity on four breast cancer cell lines either untreated or after pretreatment with metformin. Growth stimulation was tested in MTT tests and migration in scratch assays. Furthermore, the expression of adipokines of BM-MSCs in response to metformin was assessed using Western blot arrays. Compared to breast cancer cell lines (3.6 ± 1.4% reduction of proliferation), 500 µM metformin significantly inhibited the proliferation of BM-MSC lines (mean 12.3 ± 2.2 reduction). Pretreatment of BM-MSCs with metformin showed variable effects of the resulting conditioned media (CM) on breast cancer cell lines depending on the specific BM-MSC-cancer line combination. Metformin significantly reduced the migration of breast cancer cell lines MDA-MB-231 and MDA-MB-436 in response to CM of drug-pretreated BM-MSCs. Assessment of metformin-induced alterations in the expression of adipokines by BM-MSC CM indicated increased osteogenic signaling and possibly impairment of

Evidence level

Early human evidence such as case series or small samples is exploring possible benefits.

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