Potassium bicarbonate and D-ribose effects on A72 canine and HTB-126 human cancer cell line proliferation in vitro

Results with different K:D-Rib concentrations show that MTT salt interferes with K:D-Rib solution and therefore this method is not reliable. The UV/VIS measurements show that K:D-Rib solutions reduce MTT salt to formazan in absence of cells. Cell proliferation has then been evaluated analysing the digital photos of the Giemsa stained cells with MCID？ software. At 5 mM K:D-Rib concentration, the cell growth arrests between 48 h and 72 h; in fact the cell number after 48 h is around the same with respect to the control after 72 h. In case of HTB-126 human cancer cells, the growth rate was valuated counting the splitting times during 48 days: control cells were split sixteen times while 5 mM treated cells eleven times. Most relevant, the clonogenic assay shows that nine colonies are formed in the control cells while only one is formed in the 5 mM and none in 10 mM treated cells.The K:D-Rib solution has an antioxidant behaviour also at low concentrations. Incubation with 5 mM K:D-Rib solution on A72 cells shows a cytostatic effect at 5 mM, but it needs more than 24 h of incubation time to evidence this effect on cell proliferation. At the same concentration on human HTB-126 cells, K:D-Rib solution shows a clear replication slowing but the cytostatic effect at 10 mM K:D-Rib solution only. Results on A72 cells indicate the K+ uptake could be determinant either to arrest or to slow down cell growth.Cancer is still one of the major causes of death despite many years of study and many different research approaches. The theory of Cone [2] proposes that sustained depolarization of cell membrane is involved in the regulation and control of cell division during both normal and cancerous growth of tissues. Using X-Ray microanalytic method [3] the correlation between the high Na+ content and the proliferative cell capacity has been proved in different cell types [4,5]. The scope of the present work is to assess the effects of potassium hydrogen carbonate and D-ribose water solutio