Abstract Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma is a malignant liver tumor constituting greater than 90% of liver primary tumors. Most of chemotherapeutic drugs used nowadays are cytotoxic, which rise the necessity to find newer agents with anticancer activity and better safety profiles against normal cells. Sitagliptin, a dipeptidyl peptidase 4 inhibitor, has been shown to have antitumor properties through specific suppression of dipeptidyl-peptidase 4, a glycoprotein produced in many tissues that have been thought to promote metastasis and tumorigenesis. Objectives: This study aims to assess the anticancer activity of sitagliptin on liver cancer (HepG2) cell line. Materials and Methods: Five groups of cell lines were included in the study: Control group (untreated HepG2 cells), cisplatin-treated HepG2 group, sitagliptin-treated HepG2 group, cisplatin plus sitagliptin-treated group which received combination of different concentrations of cisplatin plus sitagliptin (250 μg/mL), and the fifth group treated with a combination of different concentrations of sitagliptin plus cisplatin (25 μg/mL). After exposure period, these groups were incubated for 48 h and then were used for performing 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyl-2H-tetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay for evaluating cells viability and cytotoxicity. Data were finally collected and analyzed statistically. Results: MTT assays findings indicated that sitagliptin significantly reduced the viability of HepG2 cells and it produced important cytotoxic effect against this cancer cells. Moreover, sitagliptin plus cisplatin combination showed significant reduction in HepG2 viability in addition to greater cytotoxicity for this cell-line in comparison with sitagliptin or cisplatin alone. Conclusion: Sitagliptin revealed anticancer properties against HepG2 cancer cell-line based on MTT assay, which would probably indicate its cytotoxic effect against this cell-line.
Ameen et al. (Thu,) studied this question.