Electroporation-mediated Metformin for effective anticancer treatment of triple-negative breast cancer cells

Abstract

In this research, we investigated the efficacy of Metformin, the most commonly administered type-2 diabetes drug for triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) treatment, due to its various anticancer properties. It is a plant-based bio-compound, synthesized as a novel biguanide, called dimethyl biguanide or metformin. One of the ways it operates is by hindering electron transport chain-complex I, in mitochondria, which causes a drop-in energy (ATP) generation. This eventually builds energetic stress and a decline in energy. Therefore, the natural cellular processes and proliferating tumor cells are obstructed. Here, we used electroporation, where, the MDA-MB-231, human TNBC cells were subjected to high intensity, short-duration electrical pulses (EP) in the presence of Metformin. The cell viability results indicate lower cell viability of 43.45% as compared to 85.20% with drug alone at 5mM concentration. This indicates that Metformin, the most common diabetes drug could also be explored for cancer treatment.