Effect of metformin on the improvement of prostate cancer in diabetic rats

• Main Authors: Kaijian Hou, Wansheng Ke, Jianping Xiong
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: SAGE Publishing 2019-06-01
• Series: European Journal of Inflammation
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1177/2058739219858553

This study was designed to investigate the effect of metformin on the improvement of prostate cancer in diabetic rats. A total of 20 Sprague Dawley (SD) rats were equally divided into control and intervention groups. The intervention group received intragastric metformin 200 mg/kg, while the control group was given intragastric drinking water for 4 weeks. Tumor volumes were compared, all tumor specimens underwent routine pathological examination, immunohistochemical detection of E-cadherin and N-cadherin, and western blot assay. The tumor volume of control and intervention group was 462.15 ± 45.67 and 23.46 ± 5.32 mm 3 , respectively. Hematoxylin and eosin (HE) staining showed partial visible glandular structure with deepened nuclear staining in the intervention group. Immunohistochemistry showed high expression (6.5 ± 0.28 vs 3.8 ± 0.26, P  < 0.05) of E-cadherin and low expression (3.4 ± 0.12 vs 7.8 ± 0.34, P  < 0.05) of N-cadherin in the intervention group. Western blot assay showed higher expression of E-cadherin, while low N-cadherin in the intervention group. Metformin can effectively alleviate lesion extent of prostate cancer and mechanism may be related to upregulation of E-cadherin and downregulation of N-cadherin expression.