Fig. 5

Metformin effects on primary epithelial breast cancer cells are dependent of AMPK activation. a MBCDF and MBCD17 primary breast cancer cell lines were treated with 40 ng/mL IL-6. At day 1, MTF was added to cells incubated with or without IL-6. Same experiment was repeated in the presence of 10 μM Compound C (COMP C) that was added 2 h before IL-6. The activation of STAT3 and NF-κB was measured by phospho-specific antibodies anti-pSTAT3 Y705 and anti-pNF-κB S536 antibody respectively. b MBCDF and MBCD17 cells were treated with 40 ng/mL IL-6, previous addition of 1 mM 5-aminoimidazole-4-carboxamide-1-β-D-ribofuranoside (AICAR), an activator of AMPK kinase. The activation of STAT3, NF-κB was evaluated as in Fig. 5a. AMPK activation was measured by a phospho-specific anti-pAMPK-T172