PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Panchanathan, Elango
AU  - Ramanathan, Gnanasambandan
AU  - Subrahmanya Lakkakula, Bhaskar Venkata Kameswara
TI  - Effect of flupirtine on the growth and viability of U373 malignant glioma cells
AID  - 10.7497/j.issn.2095-3941.2013.03.004
DP  - 2013 Sep 01
TA  - Cancer Biology and Medicine
PG  - 142--147
VI  - 10
IP  - 3
4099  - http://www.cancerbiomed.org/content/10/3/142.short
4100  - http://www.cancerbiomed.org/content/10/3/142.full
SO  - Cancer Biol Med2013 Sep 01; 10
AB  - Objective: Flupirtine is a non-opioid analgesic without antipyretic or antiphlogistic properties but with favorable tolerability in humans. This analgesic also exhibits neuroprotective activities. Furthermore, flupirtine antagonizes glutamate- and NMDA-induced intracellular levels of Ca2+ and counteracts the effects of focal cerebral ischemia. Although flupirtine has been used to relieve pain caused by different diseases and clinical procedures, information on the safety and efficacy of flupirtine is limited. The present study was conducted to investigate the neuroprotective effects of flupirtine on U373 malignant glioma (MG) cell lines.Methods: Cell viability and cell cycle analysis was performed by MTT assay and flow cytometry, respectively.Results: Variations in the growth of U373 MG cells in 5 mM N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA), 1 mM flupirtine, and combined treatment indicated the antagonistic effects of NMDA and flupirtine on MG cell lines. The variation in the percentage of gated cell population in different cell cycle phases showed significant variations after 48 h of treatment.Conclusion: Flupirtine has neuroprotective effect of on U373 MG cells, which limits its use in the pain management of brain tumors. This property warrants further studies using animal models and large-scale clinical trials.