Investigations on in vitro anti-carcinogenic potential of L-carnosine in liver cancer cells.

This study was carried out to investigate the anti-carcinogenic effect of L-carnosine in human carcinoma cells (SNU-423). The SNU-423 cancer cells were cultured at a density of 2 × 10 cells/well in Dulbecco modified Eagle medium. After 24 h of adherence, the cells were treated with L-carnosine (0.2 and 1 mg/mL) for 48 h. Then, cell viability was assessed by sulforhodamine assay, while mitochondrial dysfunction was measured by fluorescence microscopy using chromatin-specific dye Hoechst 33258. Intracellular levels of ROS were assayed by fluorescence spectroscopy with 2',7'-dichlorofluorescein diacetate (DCFDA). L-Carnosine significantly inhibited the growth of the SNU-423 cells (p < 0.05). The inhibitory effect of L-carnosine was confirmed by results from mitochondrial fragmentation assay. The relative fluorescent unit was increased in a dose-dependent manner by L-carnosine, with values of 79.43, 186.87 and 400.89 for 0.6, 0.8 and 1 mg/mL of L-carnosine, respectively (p < 0.05). These results demonstrate that L-carnosine exerts anti-carcinogenic effects in human liver cancer cells.