Nooshin Farahmandlou - Department of Molecular and Cellular Sciences, Faculty of Advanced Sciences & Technology, Pharmaceutical Sciences Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran

Background: Cellular and molecular studies have shown that androgens play a considerable role in proliferation and differentiation of stem cells and cell lines. This in vitro experiment was exerted to determine the association of testosterone with normal embryonic kidney (HEK 293) cells proliferation in cell culture.Methods: HEK 293 cells were obtained from Iran NCB. Cells were cultured in growth medium supplemented with 10% FBS and 1% antibiotics (penicillin/streptomycin) and randomly divided into control group (not exposed to testosterone) and groups exposed to 1, 10, 100 and 1000 μg/ml of testosterone. Cell viability was quantified by MTT assay. Statistical analysis was performed using ANOVA followed by post hoc Tukey s multiple comparisons test.Result: HEK239 cells viability significantly increased in group exposed to 1 μg/ml and decreased in groups exposed to 100 and 1000 μg/ml of testosterone compared to control group (PConclusion: Our findings indicated that lower concentrations of testosterone increase normal cell line proliferation; however, higher concentrations of testosterone have cytotoxic effects on normal cell line resuting in decreased cell proliferation; according to which, it might be concluded that testosterone plays a significant role in stem cells proliferation.

HEK 293, Proliferation, Stem cells, MTT assay, Testosterone