Abstract

Background: Investigate the antiproliferative and antioxidant role of metformin by exploring the cellular proliferation and mRNA expression of CDK4, HO1 and COX1 in SCC (HEp-2 cell line) treated with three different doses of metformin. Methods: SCC cell line was treated with 5, 10 and 20 mmol/l metformin respectively for one week. Cell proliferation was measured using the MTT assay. Real-time PCR quantified the mRNA expression level of HO1, COX1 and CDK4. Results: One-way ANOVA and Post Hoc Tukey’s tests revealed that treatment with 10mmol/l metformin proved to have the best effect among the doses used. It showed to have significant effect on cell proliferation and on the mRNA expression of HO1, COX1 and CDK4 when compared with the control group and with the cells treated with 5 mmol/l. No significant difference was found in all tests when compared with cells treated with 20 mmol/l. Conclusions: Metformin is an effective antiproliferative and antioxidant drug on human SCC cell line