Neoplastic transformation of rat liver epithelial cells is enhanced by non-transferrin-bound iron

BMC Gastroenterology

Table 2 Time dependence of tumor promotion by iron.

MNNG	Promoter	Number of soft agar colonies per 25,000 cells¹
		Week 12	Week 14	Week 16	Week 18	Week 20
0	50 μM FAC	0.8 (+/- 0.5)	0.8 (+/- 0.5)	3.5 (+/- 1.2)	2.3 (+/- 0.5)	4.0 (+/- 2.0)
0.5	50 μM FAC	7.5 (+/- 1.4)	4.5*(+/- 0.5)	7.0*(+/- 0.4)	17.8*(+/- 1.3)	52.7*(+/- 1.2)
0	200 μM FAC	5.3 (+/- 1.2)	1.0 (+/- 0.4)	10.8 (+/- 2.4)	9.3 (+/- 1.0)	2.3 (+/- 1.2)
0.5	200 μM FAC	12.8*(+/- 1.0)	21.5*(+/- 0.3)	32.5 (+/- 8.5)	66.0*(+/- 9.0)	>99* (n.d.)
0	200 μM AmCit	1.5 (+/- 0.3)	0.0 (+/- 0.0)	1.3 (+/- 0.6)	0.0 (+/- 0.0)	0.3 (+/- 0.3)
0.5	200 μM AmCit	1.3 (+/- 0.5)	0.0 (+/- 0.0)	0.5 (+/- 0.3)	0.0 (+/- 0.0)	0.7 (+/- 0.7)

¹Cells exposed or not to 0.5 μg/ml MNNG were cultured with FAC (or Ammonium Citrate control) for the indicated times, with 2 week passaging intervals, prior to soft agar assay (means of n = 4 soft agar dishes; *p < 0.01 compared to 200 μM AmCit only controls). The agar dishes from cells treated with 0.5 μg/ml MNNG + 20 weeks 200 μM FAC had too many colonies to accurately count (the s.e.m. was not determined).

ISSN: 1471-230X