Figure 1

Carnosine decreases acidification of the growth media of different cell lines. (A) HeLa cells were incubated for 48 h in hypoxic conditions in the presence of different concentrations of carnosine (5–40 mM) and the extracellular pH was measured by SDR in real time. Carnosine treatment markedly decreased the acidification of growth media in a dose-dependent manner. **denotes p < 0.01 for the comparison between samples treated with different carnosine concentrations and the untreated control. (B) SiHa, HeLa, HT-29, MDCK-CA IX, and MDCK-mock cells were exposed to hypoxia for 48 h in the presence of 20 mM carnosine. The columns in the graph represent differences in the endpoint pH values of carnosine-treated cells and their respective untreated controls. Carnosine caused considerable alkalization of growth media in all studied cell lines, except for MDCK mock cells in which the effect of carnosine was noticeably lower. Differences between endpoint pH values of the untreated control and carnosine-treated cells were evaluated by a t-test (*p < 0.05, **p < 0.01).