Difference in invasive ability in vitro of different breast cancer cell lines and its influencing factors

ObjectiveTo investigate the difference in invasion ability in vitro of different breast cancer cell lines and to screen genes associated with the difference.MethodsTwo common breast cancer cell lines (MDA-MB-231high metastatic potential and MCF-7low metastatic potential) were used in the study.The invasion ability of the two cell lines was evaluated with wound healing assay,cell adhesion assay,and transwell assay;real-time fluorescence quantitative PCR was used to identify gene expressions associated with the invasion ability and cellular immunohistochemistry method was adopted to confirm primary identifications.ResultsThe average migration distance of MDA-MB-231 cells at 24 and 48 hours were 218.75±20.16 μm and 211.50±16.54 μm,and significantly higher than those of MCF-7 cells (130±29.62 μm and 119.50±25.65 μm:both P<0.01).Cell adhesion assay revealed that the adhesion ability of MDA-MB-231 cells were higher than that of MCF-7 cells.The average number of MDA-MB-231 cells migrating through the membrane at 24 hours was higher than that of MCF-7 cells (57.75±4.19 vs.35.50±4.20,P<0.01).The results of real-time fluorescent quantitative PCR showed that the expression levels of intercellular adhesion molecule 1 (ICAM-1) and breast cancer suppressor candidate 1 (BCSC-1) in MDA-MB-231 cells were 0.09±0.01 and 0.15±0.03,significantly lower than those in MCF-7 cells (both P<0.01);but the matrix metalloproteinase 14 (MMP-14) expression level in MDA-MB-231 cells was 14.43±1.01,higher than that in MCF-7 cells (P<0.01).The results of cell immunohistochemistry also demonstrated that ICAM-1 and BCSC-1 were lower expressed and MMP-14 was highly expressed in MDA-MB-231 cells compared to those in MCF-7 cells.ConclusionThe invasion ability of MDA-MB-231 cells in vitro is higher significantly than that of MCF-7 cells,and the ability may be associated with low expression of ICAM-1 and BCSC-1 and high expression of MMP-14.