ArticleTumour biology : the journal of the International Society for Oncodevelopmental Biology and Medicine2015
Metformin inhibits thyroid cancer cell growth, migration, and EMT through the mTOR pathway.
Article in Tumour biology : the journal of the International Society for Oncodevelopmental Biology and Medicine, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 64 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
64 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 97 citations in OpenAlex.
- Combating Drug Resistance in Lung Cancer: Exploring the Synergistic Potential of Metformin and Cisplatin in a Novel Combination Therapy; A Systematic Review.Current topics in medicinal chemistry · 2025Pooled it
- Will metformin use lead to a decreased risk of thyroid cancer? A systematic review and meta-analyses.European journal of medical research · 2023Pooled it
- Pooled it
- The Influence of Energy Depletion by Metformin or Hypocaloric Diet on Thyroid Iodine Uptake in Healthy Volunteers: a Randomized Trial.Scientific reports · 2019Trial
- Comparison of Metformin Combinations with Other Repurposed Drugs in the Treatment of Hamster Fibrosarcoma: A Review.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Biological Anti-Tumoral Mechanisms of Metformin in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinomas: A Systematic Review.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Review
- Diabetes mellitus secondary to endocrine diseases: a position statement of the working group of the club of the Italian society of endocrinology (SIE)-Nutrition hormones and metabolism.Journal of endocrinological investigation · 2025Review
- The regulatory network of epithelial-mesenchymal transition-associated non-coding RNAs in thyroid cancer: molecular mechanisms, clinical implications, and therapeutic strategies.Frontiers in oncology · 2025Review
- The effects of hsa-mir-26a-5p on cell proliferation, migration, and PI3K inhibitor sensitivity in metformin-resistant triple negative breast cancer cells.Turkish journal of biology = Turk biyoloji dergisi · 2025Article
- Associations between Diabetes Mellitus and Selected Cancers.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Review
- Metabolic Reprogramming in Thyroid Cancer.Endocrinology and metabolism (Seoul, Korea) · 2024Review
- High glucose inhibits autophagy and promotes the proliferation and metastasis of colorectal cancer through the PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway.Cancer medicine · 2024Article
- Effects of Metformin Therapy on Thyroid Volume and Functions in Patients with Newly Diagnosed Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: A Single-center Prospective Study.Endocrine, metabolic & immune disorders drug targets · 2024Observational
- Diabetes Mellitus and Thyroid Cancers: Risky Correlation, Underlying Mechanisms and Clinical Prevention.Diabetes, metabolic syndrome and obesity : targets and therapy · 2024Review
- Epidemiological, Pathophysiological, and Clinical Considerations on the Interplay between Thyroid Disorders and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2023Review
- Effect of metformin alone and in combination with etoposide and epirubicin on proliferation, apoptosis, necrosis, and migration of B-CPAP and SW cells as thyroid cancer cell lines.Research in pharmaceutical sciences · 2023Article
- Metformin and long non-coding RNAs in breast cancer.Journal of translational medicine · 2023Review
- Drug repositioning in thyroid cancer treatment: the intriguing case of anti-diabetic drugs.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2023Review
- Metformin Decreases Serum Thyroglobulin Concentration in Nonmedullary Thyroid Carcinoma.Journal of the Endocrine Society · 2022Article
- Metformin in Differentiated Thyroid Cancer: Molecular Pathways and Its Clinical Implications.Biomolecules · 2022Review
4 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) signaling pathways have been shown to be activated in thyroid cancer. Recent evidences have demonstrated that the antidiabetic agent metformin, an activator of 5'-AMP-activated protein kinase, can impair the proliferation and migration of cancer cells via inhibition of mTOR. However, the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. In this study, we show that metformin can inhibit mTOR pathway to impair growth and migration of the thyroid cancer cell lines. Cyclin D1 and c-Myc are important regulators of cancer cell growth, and we observed that treatment of thyroid cancer cells with metformin reduced c-Myc and cyclin D1 expression through suppression of mTOR and subsequent inhibition of P70S6K1 and 4E-BP1 phosphorylation. Metformin reduced epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) in thyroid carcinoma cells. Moreover, metformin regulated expression of the EMT-related markers E-cadherin, N-cadherin, and Snail. Additionally, knockdown of TSC2, the upstream regulatory molecule of mTOR pathway, or treatment of rapamycin, the mTOR inhibitor, could abolish the effects of metformin to regulate thyroid cancer cell proliferation, migration, EMT, and mTOR pathway molecules. These results indicate that metformin can suppress the proliferation, migration, and EMT of thyroid cancer cell lines by inhibiting mTOR signaling. These findings suggest that metformin and its molecular targets may be useful in thyroid carcinoma therapy.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.