scholarly journals Functional Estrogen Receptors in the Mitochondria of Breast Cancer Cells

2006 ◽  
Vol 17 (5) ◽  
pp. 2125-2137 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali Pedram ◽  
Mahnaz Razandi ◽  
Douglas C. Wallace ◽  
Ellis R. Levin

Steroid hormones have been reported to indirectly impact mitochondrial functions, attributed to nuclear receptor-induced production of proteins that localize in this cytoplasmic organelle. Here we show high-affinity estrogen receptors in the mitochondria of MCF-7 breast cancer cells and endothelial cells, compatible with classical estrogen receptors ERα and ERβ. We report that in MCF-7, estrogen inhibits UV radiation-induced cytochrome C release, the decrease of the mitochondrial membrane potential, and apoptotic cell death. UV stimulated the formation of mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (mROS), and mROS were essential to inducing mitochondrial events of cell death. mROS mediated the UV activation of c-jun N-terminal kinase (JNK), and protein kinase C (PKC) δ, underlying the subsequent translocation of Bax to the mitochondria where oligomerization was promoted. E2 (estradiol) inhibited all these events, directly acting in mitochondria to inhibit mROS by rapidly up-regulating manganese superoxide dismutase activity. We implicate novel functions of ER in the mitochondria of breast cancer that lead to the survival of the tumor cells.

Cells ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 1280
Author(s):  
Seung-Ho Park ◽  
Hyunhee Kim ◽  
Sungmin Kwak ◽  
Ji-Hoon Jeong ◽  
Jangho Lee ◽  
...  

Tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) plays a significant role in inflammation and cancer-related apoptosis. We identified a TNF-α-mediated epigenetic mechanism of apoptotic cell death regulation in estrogen receptor-α (ERα)-positive human breast cancer cells. To assess the apoptotic effect of TNF-α, annexin V/ propidium iodide (PI) double staining, cell viability assays, and Western blotting were performed. To elucidate this mechanism, histone deacetylase (HDAC) activity assay and immunoprecipitation (IP) were conducted; the mechanism was subsequently confirmed through chromatin IP (ChIP) assays. Finally, we assessed HDAC3–ERα-mediated apoptotic cell death after TNF-α treatment in ERα-positive human breast cancer (MCF-7) cells via the transcriptional activation of p53 target genes using luciferase assay and quantitative reverse transcription PCR. The TNF-α-induced selective apoptosis in MCF-7 cells was negatively regulated by the HDAC3–ERα complex in a caspase-7-dependent manner. HDAC3 possessed a p53-binding element, thus suppressing the transcriptional activity of its target genes. In contrast, MCF-7 cell treatment with TNF-α led to dissociation of the HDAC3–ERα complex and substitution of the occupancy on the promoter by the p53–p300 complex, thus accelerating p53 target gene expression. In this process, p53 stabilization was accompanied by its acetylation. This study showed that p53-mediated apoptosis in ERα-positive human breast cancer cells was negatively regulated by HDAC3–ERα in a caspase-7-dependent manner. Therefore, these proteins have potential application in therapeutic strategies.


APOPTOSIS ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 14 (7) ◽  
pp. 913-922 ◽  
Author(s):  
A-Mi Seo ◽  
Seung-Woo Hong ◽  
Jae-Sik Shin ◽  
In-Chul Park ◽  
Nam-Joo Hong ◽  
...  

2016 ◽  
Vol 241 (18) ◽  
pp. 2086-2093 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mengxia Zhang ◽  
Hailiang Zhang ◽  
Fan Tang ◽  
Yuhua Wang ◽  
Zhongcheng Mo ◽  
...  

Macrophage colony-stimulating factor is a vital factor in maintaining the biological function of monocyte–macrophage lineage. It is expressed in many tumor tissues and cancer cells. Recent findings indicate that macrophage colony-stimulating factor might contribute to chemoresistance, but the precise mechanisms are unclear. This study was to explore the effect of macrophage colony-stimulating factor on doxorubicin resistance in MCF-7 breast cancer cells and the possible mechanism. In the study, the human breast cancer cells, MCF-7, were transfected with macrophage colony-stimulating factor. We document that cytoplasmic macrophage colony-stimulating factor induces doxorubicin resistance and inhibits apoptosis in MCF-7 cells. Further studies demonstrated that cytoplasmic macrophage colony-stimulating factor-mediated apoptosis inhibition was dependent on the activation of PI3K/Akt/Survivin pathway. More importantly, we found that macrophage colony-stimulating factor-induced autophagic cell death in doxorubicin-treated MCF-7 cells. Taken together, we show for the first time that macrophage colony-stimulating factor-induced doxorubicin resistance is associated with the changes in cell death response with defective apoptosis and promotion of autophagic cell death.


Proceedings ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 9
Author(s):  
Amani Abdulmunem ◽  
Pınar Obakan-Yerlikaya ◽  
Elif-Damla Arisan ◽  
Ajda Coker-Gurkan

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women worldwide and the second most common cancer overall. Autocrine growth hormone (GH) expression induced cell proliferation, growth, invasion-metastasis in vitro and in vivo breast cancer models. Moreover, forced GH signaling acts as a drug resistance profile in breast cancer cell lines against chemotherapeutic drugs such as tamoxifen, mitomycin C, doxorubicin and curcumin. Triptolide, an active plant extract from Tripterygium wilfordii, has been shown to induce apoptotic cell death in various cancer cells such a prostate, colon, breast cancer. Metformin, a common therapeutic agent for type II Diabetes mellitus, has been shown to induce autophagy, endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress and apoptotic cell death in cancer cells. Our aim is to demonstrate the potential effect of metformin on triptolide-mediated drug resistance in autocrine GH expressing MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells through Endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress. Autocrine GH-mediated triptolide (20 nM) resistance overcame by metformin (2 mM) co-teatment in MDA-MB231 breast cancer cells through accelerating cell viability loss, growth inhibition compared to alone triptolide treatment. Combined treatment increased apoptotic cell death via CHOP activation, IRE1α upregulation. Consequently, we suggest that triptolide can be more effective with metformin combination in MDA-MB-231 GH+ drug resistant breast cancer cells.


Synergy ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 10-16
Author(s):  
Fatemeh Kiani ◽  
Negin Rasouli ◽  
Tahereh Kashkoolinejad ◽  
Shahrokh Safarian ◽  
Seyed Jalal Zargar ◽  
...  

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Xingguo Quan ◽  
Beom Seok Kwak ◽  
Ji-Young Lee ◽  
Jin Hee Park ◽  
Anbok Lee ◽  
...  

Cordyceps militaris has been widely used as a traditional medicine in East Asia. Its effects against breast cancer have been reported previously. However, whether C. militaris-induced breast cancer cell death is immunogenic remains unelucidated. This study aimed to determine whether ethanolic extracts of C. militaris (CM-EE) could induce immunogenic cell death (ICD) in breast cancer immunotherapy to improve the efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibitors. Human and mouse breast cancer cells were treated with various concentrations of CM-EE for 72 h, and cytotoxicity was measured using the sulforhodamine B assay. Flow cytometry was used to assess cell death with annexin V/7-AAD staining and measure the surface exposure of damage-associated molecular pattern (DAMP) molecules including calreticulin, HSP70, and HSP90. Western blot for cleaved poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) was used to confirm apoptotic cell death. The immunogenicity of CM-EE-induced dead cells was evaluated using the CFSE dilution assay. CM-EE reduced the viability of human (MCF7, MDA-MB-231, HS578T, and SKBR3) and mouse (4T1-neu-HA, TUBO-HA, and TUBO-P2J-HA) breast cancer cells. The IC50 was 25–50 µg/ml in human breast cancer cells and 10–50 µg/ml in mouse breast cancer cells at 72 h. CM-EE-treated breast cancer cells were positively stained by annexin V, cleaved PARP, and cleaved caspase 3/7 which were increased upon CM-EE treatment. Surface exposure of DAMP molecules was increased in dose- and time-dependent manners. The CFSE dilution assay revealed that dendritic cells fed with CM-EE-treated breast cancer cells successfully stimulated tumor-specific T cell proliferation without inhibiting DC function and T cell proliferation. The expression of PD-L1 mRNA and protein level was increased in dose-dependent manners. In addition, CM-EE also potentiated the cytotoxic activity of tumor-specific T cells. CM-EE can induce immunogenic and apoptotic cell death in breast cancer cells, and it is a good candidate for cancer immunotherapy and may improve the efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibitors.


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