Association studies suggest that thyroid hormone receptor β (TRβ) could function as a tumor suppressor in breast cancer development, but unequivocal evidence is still lacking. To understand the role of TRβ in breast tumor development, we adopted the gain-of-function approach by stably expressing the THRB gene in a human breast cancer cell line, MCF-7 (MCF-7-TRβ). Parental MCF-7 cells express th...

Spontaneous or therapeutic-ally induced progression of hormone-de pendent human breast cancer to a form not amenable to endocrine treatment has been frequently recorded in clinical settings. In an experi mental model system, we have changed the estrogen-dependent tumorigenicity of a human breast cancer cell line, MCF-7, to an independent state by stably introducing a model oncogene, y-ras", int...

BACKGROUND ER1626, a novel compound, is a derivate of indeno-isoquinoline ketone. This study was designed to evaluate the biological activity and potential anti-tumor mechanism of ER1626. METHOD MTT assay, scratch assay and flow cytometry were used to determine cell proliferation, cell migration and cell cycle distribution as well as cell apoptosis on human breast cancer MCF-7 cells and endom...

BACKGROUND MicroRNAs are non-coding RNAs involved in the regulation of gene expression including DNA damage responses. Low doses of low energy X-ray radiation, similar to those used in mammographic exams, has been described to be genotoxic. In the present work we investigated the expression of miR-34a; a well described p53-regulated miRNA implicated in cell responses to X-ray irradiation at low...

BACKGROUND Cancer stem cells are presumed to have virtually unlimited proliferative and self-renewal abilities and to be highly resistant to chemotherapy, a feature that is associated with overexpression of ATP-binding cassette transporters. We investigated whether prolonged continuous selection of cells for drug resistance enriches cultures for cancer stem-like cells. METHODS Cancer stem cel...

We evaluated the in vitro antiproliferative and apoptotic potential of the ethyl acetate extract (EAE) of Peltophorum africanum, a member of the family Fabaceae (Sond) in order to validate its pharmacological use. Antiproliferation of human breast (MCF-7), colon (HT-29) and cervical (HeLa) cancer cell lines by EAE was investigated using the Cell Titer-Blue viability assay and the mechanism of a...

Background and objective: According to reports, a serine protease inhibitor (Maspin) suppresses metastasis, invasion and angiogenesis in breast and prostate cancers. Silibinin is a natural polyphenolic flavonoid with anti-cancer activity. We assessed the effects of silibinin on cell viability, maspin and ERα gene expression in MCF-7 cell line. <s...