GSU

Trastuzumab and Cetuximab Sensitivity of Gastric Cancer Cell Lines

A panel of 11 gastric cancer cell lines was used. Following treatment with 10 µg/ml cetuximab, GSU cells displayed a decrease in cell proliferation to 68.10% in comparison with the untreated control (p = 0.04). H111TC cells were less sensitive with growth rates of 82.30% after treatment with 10 µg/ml cetuximab (p = 0.002) and a maximum inhibition of 80.16% after application of 200 µg/ml (p < 0.001). MKN7 cells showed only a minor sensitivity with a maximum decrease of cell proliferation to 83.63% following treatment with 100 µg/ml cetuximab (p = 0.001). HGC-27 cells were completely resistant to cetuximab.

Additionally, the trastuzumab sensitivity of the cell lines was investigated via cell proliferation assay (Fig. 1). Two cell lines were identified as trastuzumab sensitive: GSU and H111TC. Both displayed a significant decrease in cell proliferation after the application of the therapeutic. For GSU, 0.1 µg/ml was already sufficient to inhibit the proliferation rate to 80.10% (p = 0.009), while 40 µg/ml caused an inhibition of 72.98% (p = 0.002). H111TC displayed a less sensitive phenotype with a maximum inhibition of 80.03 and 80.31% after application of 20 µg/ml and 40 µg/ml trastuzumab (p = 0.024; p = 0.02), respectively. For the other cell lines, no significant inhibition of cell proliferation was observed.

Table 1. Effect of cetuximab treatment on the gastric cancer cell lines. (Kneissl J, et al., 2017)

Fig. 1 Effect of trastuzumab treatment on the cell proliferation of gastric cancer cell lines. (Kneissl J, et al., 2017)