The Role of the Cell Surface Proteases Meprin A and B in Breast Cancer Progression
Abstract
The proteolytic enzyme meprin has been associated with a variety of human cancer cell lines, including the breast cancer cell lines MCF-7 and SK-BR-3 (Matters and Bond, 1999) The current project has focused on the effect of meprin alpha and beta overexpression on the progression of breast cancer cells from a less invasive to a more invasive state. These studies used a moderately invasive human breast cancer cell line, MDA-MB-231, which does not express either meprin alpha or beta under normal culture conditions. Stable transfection and expression of meprin cDNAs in MDA-MB-231 cells creates in a more invasive phenotype as measured in vitro. Meprin a expression alone significantly increased invasiveness over that seen in nontransfected or vector-only transfected cells. In addition, co-expression of meprin alpha and beta increased invasiveness above that in meprin a only transfectants. These results indicate that meprin alpha and beta both can contribute to the invasive phenotype of breast cancer cells.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 01, 2002
- Accession Number
- ADA407214
Entities
People
- Gail L. Matters
Organizations
- Pennsylvania State University