Dexamethasone Inhibits the Growth of a Uterine Cell Line Derived from p53-Deficient Mice

Abstract

UE8 is one of several uterine cell lines established from p53-deficient fetal female mice. UE8 exhibits a typical epithelial morphology in culture; it is strongly positive for cytokeratin, but negative for vimentin. Immunoblot analysis confirmed that UE8 has glucocorticoid receptors. It grows actively in medium supplemented with 3% heat-inactivated, dextran-coated charcoal-treated fetal calf serum. Dexamethazone (DEX) inhibited its growth dose-dependently at concentrations between 10−6and 10−9 M. The inhibition by DEX was further examined in chemically defined medium (CDM): DMEM/F12 containing transferrin (10 μg/ml), selenium (10−8 M) and 0.1% bovine serum albumin. DEX at 10−6 M inhibited the growth of UE8 in CDM or in CDM supplemented with insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1: 10 ng/ml), but there was no inhibition by DEX(10−6M) in the presence of epidermal growth factor (10 ng/ml). Thus, DEX inhibits the growth of a uterine epithelial cell line derived from p53-deficient mice in vitro, and also suppresses IGF-1-induced proliferation.