Journal de cytologie et d'histologie

TGF beta Exposure Promotes Acquisition of Epithelial-like Phenotype in Breast Cancer Spheres

Abstract

Xiaojing Nie, Xin Yu and Jie Huang

The epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is considered as a critical developmental process in cancer biology. TGF beta has been shown to play an important role in the induction of EMT via down-regulating E-cadherin and up-regulating vimentin expression in cancer cells. However, whether TGF beta induces EMT in cancer spheres has not been determined yet. To address this question, we generated breast cancer spheres from MCF7 and MDAMB- 231 breast cancer cell lines. These cancer spheres then were treated with recombinant human TGF beta for 24 and 48 hours, respectively in order to examine the expression of epithelial marker E-cadherin and mesenchymal marker vimentin. We find that breast cancer spheres enriched with E-cadherin and exhibit characteristics of epithelial cells by TGF beta stimulation. In addition, we did not observe TGF beta induces EMT in breast cancer spheres such as lose E-cadherin expression and gain vimentin expression. Our data suggested that TGF beta plays a different role in breast cancer spheres and cancer cells during EMT induction.