INFLUENCE OF BERBERINE ON ENERGY PHENOTYPE OF BREAST CANCER CELL CULTURES
The work investigates the effect of berberine on the parameters of mitochondrial respiration and glycolysis in breast cancer cell lines BT20, BT474 and MDA-MB-453. Baseline and reserve OXPHOS were assessed by the oxygen consumption rate (OCR), and the extracellular acidification rate (ECAR) of the medium served as an indicator of the intensity of glycolysis. The measurements were performed on a Seahorse XFp Analyzer (Agilent, USA) extracellular flow analyzer. Cells of the studied lines were seeded in an amount of 2×104 per well in Seahorse XFp Analyzer plates in DMEM medium supplemented with 10 % FBS, berberine was added to the experimental wells to a final concentration of 2.5 μM or 10 μM. Plates with cells were cultured for 24 hours at 37 °C and 5 % CO2, after that measurements were carried out with the addition of a mixture of metabolic poisons - oligomycin (1 μM) and FCCP (2 μM) to the medium. According to the study, berberine exerted a dose-dependent inhibitory effect on the baseline level of cellular respiration in all studied lines, without significantly affecting the OXPHOS reserve. A decrease in the level of oxygen consumption was accompanied by an increase in glycolysis in MDA-MB-453 cells, however, in BT20 and BT474 cell cultures, the level of glycolysis did not differ significantly in the control and experimental samples. The work was the first to find a decrease in the glycolysis reserve, which depended on the dose of berberine and was observed in all studied cell lines.