The transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta) superfamily of growth factors is responsible for a variety of physiologic actions, including cell cycle regulation. Activin is a member of the TGF-beta superfamily that inhibits the proliferation of breast cancer cells. Activin functions by interacting with its type I and type II receptors to induce phosphorylation of intracellular signaling molecu...

PURPOSE One of the most challenging aspects of breast carcinoma chemotherapy is the rapid acquirement of drug resistance. Improving the sensitivity to chemotherapeutic drugs is very important for successful treatment. Mus81 plays an important role in maintaining the stability of the genome and DNA repair. However, recent studies suggested that Mus81 expression levels correlate well with resista...

BACKGROUND Estrogen receptors (ER) are expressed in about two thirds of human breast cancer, and are an important pharmacological target for treatment of these tumors. Dominant negative forms of the ER have been suggested as an alternative method to disrupt ER function. In this study, we examined the effect of dominant negative ER mutants (ER1-536 and L540Q) on ER-positive breast cancer cells i...

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...

OBJECTIVES Berberine, a naturally occurring isoquinoline alkaloid, has shown antitumor properties in some in vitro systems. But the effect of berberine on breast cancer has not yet been completely studied. In this study, we evaluated anticancer properties of berberine in comparison to doxorubicin. MATERIALS AND METHODS The antiproliferative effects of berberine and doxorubicin alone and in co...

Two human breast cancer lines, MCF-7 and T47D cells, were investigated for the presence of estrogen receptor (ER) by biochemical and histochemical techniques. Using the dextran-coated charcoal technique and isoelectric focusing, MCF-7 cells were ER positive, and T47D cells were ER negative. Fluorescein conjugates to 17 beta-estradiol by the sixth carbon (17 beta-estradiol-6-carboxymethyloxime:b...

PURPOSE Clofarabine, a purine nucleoside analogue and inhibitor of Ribonucleotide Reductase (RR), is used for treatment of leukemia. Clofarabine-induced defect in DNA replication, induces p53 and subsequently P53R2 genes as subunit of RR. clofarabine deregulated P53R2 gene expression leading to the elevated levels of P53R2 which impose resistance to DNA damaging drugs. In this study the apoptot...

objective: breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in women. cisplatin is a traditional cancer drug commonly used in chemotherapy for killing cancer cells. modulation at the mrna levels of apoptotic related genes often correlate with the sensitivity of various types of cancer cells to chemotherapeutic agents. nanoparticulate drug delivery systems are being developed to effecti...