Effect of pituitary growth hormone and insulin-like growth factor type-I on proliferation, apoptosis and hormone secretion of the placental cell line JEG-3

Abstract

Objective. Placenta human choriocarcinoma JEG-3 cells were used to study the possibility that pituitary growth hormone (GH) and insulin-like growth factor type I (IGF-I) act on first trimester of pregnancy progesterone (P4) and human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) secretion, cell proliferation and apoptosis.

Material and methods. The JEG-3 cell line was cultured in Dulbecco modified eagle medium without phenol red containing 10% FBS. The cells were plated in 96-well plates at the density of 3 × 10³ for 24 h and treated with 10, 50, 100, or 200 ng/ml of GH or 10, 30, 100, or 250 ng/ml of IGF-I for 24 h. At the end of the culture period, cell proliferation was measured using the BrdU colorimetric assay and caspase-3 activity, as a marker of apoptosis, was determined by the colorimetric method. Media were frozen for hormone analysis by enzyme immunoassay.

Results. We found that the stimulatory activities of GH and IGF-I on both P4 and hCG secretion paralleled the stimulation of cell proliferation and inhibition of apoptosis.

Conclusion. Our findings suggest an important role for pituitary GH and IGF-I in normal placental function during the first trimester of pregnancy.

Keywords:

• Growth hormone
• insulin-like growth factor type-I
• human JEG-3 cells
• proliferation
• apoptosis
• progesterone
• human chorionic gonadotropin

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by DS/772/K/ZDS/000783. Agnieszka Rak-Mardyła is the scholar of the Foundation for Polish Science 2009 and this work was supported partially by this foundation.