There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.
Abstract
The protective role of estrogens in the colon carcinogenesis has been suggested for
many years and attributed mainly to estrogen receptor beta (ERbeta). However, the
direct effect of estrogens and their action through ERbeta on the growth of colon
cancer have been rarely studied. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of
various concentrations (10(-4)-10(-12)M) of diarylpropionitrile (DPN)--a selective
agonist of ERbeta--on the growth of murine MC38 colon cancer line. Moreover, the aim
of this paper was the immunohistochemical assessment of estrogen and progesterone
receptor expression in human colon tissues and in MC38 cells (only ERbeta). We found
that DPN induced a growth inhibition of MC38 cancer (50-94% of control group) at the
highest (10(-4)M) and two lowest concentrations (10(-11) and 10(-12)M). Furthermore,
we detected a nuclear-cytoplasmic expression of ERbeta in human normal and neoplastic
colon tissues and in the studied MC38 cancer cells. The inhibitory effect of DPN on
the growth of MC38 colon cancer line suggests a possibility of using a selective estrogen
receptor agonist in the treatment of colon cancer.