The incidence of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) keeps rising year by year, and became the next leading cause of cancer-related death. Nocodazole that exenatide has a potent anti-proliferative activity via mTOR modulation and, among the GLP-1 analogs tested, could be in the future an alternative for HCC treatment. = 3-5) (* 0.05, ** 0.01, *** 0.001 vs control) (&&& 0.001 vs liraglutide). Senescence and apoptosis are two know mechanisms of anticancer drugs. For this reason, they were evaluated as a possible cause of the decreased cell proliferation observed. In the NMA test, it is possible to evaluate nuclear morphometric parameters that enable the identification of these cellular processes. In Figure 1C(Fig. 1), red arrows indicate senescent nuclei and yellow arrows apoptotic nuclei. Exenatide treatment did not demonstrate an increase of senescent or apoptotic cells, unlike liraglutide treatment, which demonstrated senescence induction, indicating that the drugs might action on different routes. Cisplatin was utilized as a confident control (Shape 1C and 1D(Fig. 1)). Autophagy can be another well-known PRP9 system of cell proliferation reduced in tumor, and, for this good reason, we investigated if liraglutide and exenatide could actually induce autophagy in HCC cells. Our outcomes demonstrate that exenatide treatment raises autophagy considerably, both compared to the control and compared to liraglutide treatment. Rapamycin was utilized as a confident control (Shape 1E and 1F(Fig. 1)). Next, we attempted to verify when the reduction in cell proliferation by exenatide was linked to the modulation of mTOR signaling. Therefore, the cells had been pre-treated or not really with insulin, rapamycin, liraglutide, and exenatide. Our results showed that exenatide is able to inhibit insulin stimulation, as well as rapamycin and liraglutide, in a more pronounced way than liraglutide, suggesting that one Nocodazole possible mechanism of action is through the mTOR pathway (Figure 2A(Fig. 2)). To confirm these findings, we have also evaluated the mTOR protein results and manifestation show a reduction in the treated organizations, using the exenatide impact stronger than liraglutide (Shape 2B(Fig. 2)). Open up in another home window Shape 2 Aftereffect of GLP-1 analogs Nocodazole about mTOR proteins and activation manifestation. (A) HepG2 cells had been treated with insulin (200 nM), rapamycin (200 nM), liraglutide (15 M) or exenatide (15 M) for 48 h. Cell viability was evaluated by immediate cell counting. Email address details are indicated as percentage of cells with regards to control. Data stand for the suggest SD (=5) (* 0.05 vs control, ** 0.01 vs control, *** 0.001 vs control) (& 0.05 vs liraglutide). (B) mTOR manifestation on HepG2 cells after treatment for 48h with liraglutide (15 M) or exenatide (15 M). Email address details are indicated as normalized proteins/GAPDH. Data stand for the suggest SD (** 0.01 vs control) (& 0.05 vs liraglutide). Consequently, we made a decision to investigate the consequences of long-term response of HepG2 cells following the treatment with exenatide and liraglutide, in solitary or multiple dosages. The use of a single dosage of exenatide didn’t suppress the regrowth of HepG2 cells, in addition to both solitary and multiple dosages of liraglutide treatment. Nevertheless, multiple dosages treatment with exenatide resulted in a well balanced arrest from the cell development, indicating that exenatide could be an improved long-term treatment because of this tumor cell type (Shape 3A and 3B(Fig. 3)). Open up in another window Figure 3 Exenatide reduces tumor cell regrowth. (A) Protocol of treatment. (B) Cells were exposed to liraglutide (15 M), exenatide (15 M) and cisplatin (20 M positive control). Data represent the mean SD Nocodazole (* 0.05 vs control, *** 0.001 vs control) (&& 0.01, &&& 0.001 vs liraglutide). RT represents retreatment. Discussion GLP-1 exerts its role by binding to its specific receptor (GLP-1R) on human hepatocytes (Yoo et al., 2018[28]). Despite the controversy about the presence of these receptors in the liver, a recent study in human hepatoma cell lines revealed that exenatide has a dose-dependent effect in the increase of GLP-1R expression (Lee et al., 2012[16]). As an analog of GLP-1, which was first authorized.