Berberine slows cell growth in autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease cells

Differential expression of microRNA501‐5p affects the aggressiveness of clear cell renal carcinoma

“…Cell survival was measured by the CellTiter cell proliferation assay (Promega, Italy), a method based on the quantitation of a colored compound released by cells in culture medium. Color intensity, directly proportional to the living cells, was detected by a plate reader recording the absorbance at 490 nm [8].…”

Genetic mechanisms and signaling pathways in autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease

“…Metformin inhibited the growth of Madin-Darby canine kidney cysts in collagen gels and cyst growth in metanephric organ cultures and Pkd1 conditional knockout mice (154). Berberine, an AMPK activator used in traditional Chinese medicine, inhibited the growth of human and mouse ADPKD cystic cell lines (155). Thiazolidinediones, which inhibit mitochondrial respiratory complex I to elevate the AMP/ATP ratio, have been effective in several (156,157), but not all (158), animal models of PKD.…”

Engineered Kidney Tubules for Modeling Patient-Specific Diseases and Drug Discovery

“…For drug testing and discovery studies, we compared the effect of compounds with different mechanisms of action on cyst regression. We therefore treated forskolin-stimulated tubules with: (i) rapamycin -an mTOR inhibitor [ 51 ]; (ii) Tolvaptan -a highly selective arginine vasopressin (AVP) receptor antagonist [ 52 ]; (iii) octreotide (OCTR) and (iv) pasireotide (PAS) -both somatostatin analogues that decrease intracellular cAMP levels, cell proliferation and cystogenesis in vivo [ 31 ]; (v) 2-deoxy- d -glucose (2DG) -a glucose analogue that inhibits glycolysis [ 53 ]; and (vi) berberine -an isoquinoline quaternary alkaloid that has an anti-proliferative effect on various cell lines mainly by arresting the G 0 /G 1 phase of the cell cycle [ 33 , 54 ] but has not been studied in a PKD model.

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“…Following collagen polymerization (45 min at 37 °C), 1.5 ml of culture medium, composed of MEM supplemented with 10% FBS (Invitrogen), 1% l -glutamine and 1% Pen Strep, was added. Samples were cultured for 7 days in the presence of the following agents at doses that were selected on the basis of previous studies: 10 μM forskolin [ 30 ] (Cat#F6886, Sigma-Aldrich), then for another 7 days with 10 2 μM Octreotide acetate (OCTR) [ 31 ] (Cat#0239950, Toronto Research Chemicals, Brisbane Rd., North York, Canada), 10 2 μM Pasireotide diaspartate (PAS) [ 31 ] (kind gift from Novartis Farma S.p.A., Varese, Italy), 10 4 μM 2-Deoxy- d -glucose (2DG) [ 32 ] (Cat#D6134, Sigma-Aldrich), 10 μg/ml berberine chloride [ 33 ] (Cat#B3251, Sigma-Aldrich), 0.5 μM Rapamycin [ 34 ] (Cat#R0395, Sigma-Aldrich), or 10 −2 μM Arginine Vasopressin (AVP) (Cat#V9879, Sigma-Aldrich) alone or in combination with 10 −2 μM Tolvaptan [ 35 ] (Cat#T7455, Sigma-Aldrich). For OCTR and PAS dosing, we based this on data from Masyuk et al [ 31 ] to optimize the best dosage for our system.…”