A Molecular Basis Accounted for the Malignant Features of Breast Cancer Cells
Abstract
Malignancy is defined as the elevated mobility and invasiveness of tumor cells, and a deformed nuclear morphology is a common feature of malignant cells. We hypothesized that the decrease or absence of nesprin-1 in breast cancer cells may account for the malignant features of the neoplastic cells, the deformed nuclear morphology and invasiveness/high motility. We propose a pilot study to test this hypothesis. Indeed, we found that nesprin-1 expression is commonly lost in malignant breast cancer cell lines (Aim 1). We found that the suppression of nesprin-1 by siRNA led to nuclear morphological deformation and increased invasion (Aim 2). We also tested restoration of nesprin-1 expression in malignant breast cancer cells and nesprin-1 was not sufficiently stable to produce other significant phenotypes in the transfected cells, likely due to technical limitation (Aim 3). The results of these pilot experiments support the initial hypothesis of nesprin-1 as a metastatic suppressor gene and as an underlying link between two prominent features of a malignant cell, nuclear deformation and cellular malleability. We also realize further complexity of nesprin-1 function in breast cancer suppression. The pilot study promotes us to seek further investigation into the role of nesprin-1 in cancer malignancy
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 01, 2012
- Accession Number
- ADA589287
Entities
People
- Xiangxi M. Xu
Organizations
- University of Miami