Effect of vasoactive intestinal peptide on proliferation of hepatoma cells

It has been found that vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) stimulates the growth ofseveral kinds of tumor cells.There is no report so far about the effect of VIP on the growth ofhepatoma cells.Using the tetrazolium colorimetric assay (MTT assay) and cell countingmethod,it was investigated that the effect of VIP on the growth of a cultured rat hepatomaFSK-7902 cells.The results showed that VIP stimulated the proliferation of the rat hepatomacells obviously.The addition of 1μmol/L VIP caused a significant increase in the number of thecultured rat hepatoma cells on 3rd day and maximal increase occured on 4th day and 5th day ( P<0.01).The growth promoting effect was greater as the concentration of VIP increased.Thelowest effective concentration of VIP was 0.5μmol/L.Exposure to VIP for 12 h followed by re-moval of the peptide resulted in sustained growth for several days.