Conformational changes in gastric carcinoma cell membrane protein correlated to cell viability after treatment with adamantyl maleimide.
BACKGROUND: In order to investigate the mechanism of the effects of the anticancer drug adamantyl maleimide (AMI) on the in vitro growth of a human gastric carcinoma cell line (SC-M1), the membrane protein conformation on the cell surface after treatment with AMI was studied. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The interaction of AMI with SC-M1 cell line was studied by reflectance Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) microspectroscopy. The cell viability was also determined by the trypan blue exclusion method. RESULTS: FT-IR microscopic study provided evidence that the conformational conversion of the membrane proteins of the SC-M1 cell line from alpha-helix to beta-sheet was found evident, but was dependent on the AMI concentrations used and the time of treatment. AMI not only interacted with the membrane protein on the cell surface, but also entered into cells to interact with the nucleic acids. CONCLUSIONS: The relationship between membrane protein conformational changes and the cell viability of SC-M1 cell line was evident. The AMI-induced apoptosis in SC-M1 cell line was also supposed.