Metformin Triggers Autophagy to Attenuate Drug-Induced Apoptosis in NSCLC Cells, with Minor Effects on Tumors of Diabetic Patients.

The biologic plausibility of an association between type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D) and lung cancer has received increasing attention, but the results of investigations remain largely inconclusive. In the present study we investigated the influence of the anti-diabetic drug metformin on the cytotoxic effects of EGFR targeted therapy and chemotherapy in 7 non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cell lines and a cohort of lung cancer patients with/without T2D. In vitro cell viability assays indicated that metformin didn't potentiate the growth inhibitory effects of erlotinib at different doses in cell lines that are of distinct genetic background.

Genetic alterations in the tyrosine kinase transcriptome of human cancer cell lines.

Protein tyrosine kinases (PTKs) play a critical role in the manifestation of cancer cell properties, and respective signaling mechanisms have been studied extensively on immortalized tumor cells. To characterize and analyze commonly used cancer cell lines with regard to variations in the primary structure of all expressed PTKs, we conducted a cDNA-based sequence analysis of the entire tyrosine kinase transcriptome of 254 established tumor cell lines. The profiles of cell line intrinsic PTK transcript alterations and the evaluation of 155 identified polymorphisms and 234 somatic mutations are made available in a database designated "Tykiva" (tyrosine kinome variant).