Three major flavonoid fractions were separated from a methanol extract of Calendula officinalis flowers by preparative TLC. These fractions were evaluated for the inhibition of parent and tamoxifen resistant T47D human breast cancer cells. We also examined the effect of ...

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are a subpopulation of cells that can self-renew and initiate tumours. The clotting-initiating protein Tissue Factor (TF) promotes metastasis and may be overexpressed in cancer cells with increased CSC activity. We sought to determine whether TF promotes breast CSC activity in vitro using human breast cancer cell lines. TF expression was compared in anoikis-resistant (C...

Herceptin is considered an essential treatment option for double negative breast cancer. Resveratrol and didox are known chemopreventive agents with potential anticancer properties. The aim of the current study is to investigate the influence of resveratrol and didox on the cytotoxicity profile of herceptin in HER-2 receptor positive and HER-2 receptor negative breast cancer cell lines (T47D an...

A photoaffinity derivative of salmon calcitonin has been produced by transglutaminase-mediated incorporation of N-(beta-aminoethyl)-4-azido-2-nitroaniline into the hormone. The derivative, purified by high pressure liquid chromatography, retained the abilities to bind to cultured T47D breast cancer cells and to stimulate adenylate cyclase in these cells. In both these respects it was equipotent...

OBJECTIVES MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of short RNAs that control the biological processes including cell proliferation, apoptosis and development. Aberrant expression of miRNAs was determined in the different stages of tumor development and metastasis. To study the effect of silibinin on miRNAs expression, we evaluated quantitative expression of miR-21 and miR-155 as two oncomiRs and severa...

Previous work has shown that DNA hypermethylation of tumor suppressor genes in colorectal cancer cells may be maintained in the absence of the major mammalian methyltransferase, DNA methyltransferase 1 (DNMT1). In an effort to dissect the dependency on DNMT1 to maintain such hypermethylation in different cancer types, we performed a systematic analysis of depletion of DNMT1 in colorectal (SW48)...

The genetic changes and mechanisms underlying the progression of estrogen-dependent breast cancers to estrogen-independent, antiestrogen-resistant, and metastatic breast cancers are unclear despite being a major problem in endocrine therapy. To identify genes responsible for this progression, we carried out a genetic screening by an enhanced retroviral mutagen (ERM)-mediated random mutagenesis ...

Progesterone (P4) was demonstrated to inhibit migration in vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs), but to enhance migration in T47D breast cancer cells. To investigate the mechanism responsible for this switch in P4 action, we examined the signaling pathway responsible for the P4-induced migration enhancement in breast cancer cell lines, T47D and MCF-7. Here, we demonstrated that P4 activated the...

Histone deacetylases (HDACs) are enzymes involved in the remodelling of chromatin, and have a key role in the epigenetic regulation of gene expression. Histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors are emerging as an exciting new class of potential anti-cancer agents. In recent years, a number of structurally diverse HDAC inhibitors have been identified and these HDAC inhibitors induce growth arrest, d...

We report that transfection of insulin-like growth factor-binding protein-3 (IGFBP-3) cDNA in human breast cancer cell lines expressing either mutant p53 (T47D) or wild-type p53 (MCF-7) induces apoptosis. IGFBP-3 also increases the ratio of pro-apoptotic to anti-apoptotic members of the Bcl-2 family. In MCF-7, an increase in Bad and Bax protein expression and a decrease in Bcl-x(L) protein and ...