Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2016
College/Unit
Eberly College of Arts and Sciences
Department/Program/Center
Biology
Abstract
Background: Membrane depolarization is associated with breast cancer. Depolarization-activated voltage-gated ion channels are directly implicated in the initiation, proliferation, and metastasis of breast cancer.
Methods: In this study, the role of voltage-gated potassium and calcium ion channel modulation was explored in two different invasive ductal human carcinoma cell lines, MDA-MB-231 (triple-negative) and MCF7 (estrogen-receptor-positive).
Results: Resting membrane potential is more depolarized in MCF7 and MDA-MB-231 cells compared to normal human mammary epithelial cells. Increasing extracellular potassium concentration up to 50 mM depolarized mem‑ brane potential and greatly increased cell growth. Tetraethylammonium (TEA), a non-specific blocker of voltagegated potassium channels, stimulated growth of MCF7 cells (control group grew by 201 %, 1 mM TEA group grew 376 %). Depolarization-induced calcium influx was hypothesized as a requirement for growth of human breast cancer. Removing calcium from culture medium stopped growth of MDA and MCF7 cells, leading to cell death after 1 week. Verapamil, a blocker of voltage-gated calcium channels clinically used in treating hypertension and coronary disease, inhibited growth of MDA cells at low concentration (10–20 μM) by 73 and 92 % after 1 and 2 days, respectively. At high concentration (100 μM), verapamil killed >90 % of MDA and MCF7 cells after 1 day. Immunoblotting experiments demonstrated that an increased expression of caspase-3, critical in apoptosis signaling, positively correlated with verapamil concentration in MDA cells. In MCF7, caspase-9 expression is increased in response to verapamil.
Conclusions: Our results support our hypotheses that membrane depolarization and depolarization-induced calcium influx stimulate proliferation of human breast cancer cells, independently of cancer subtypes. The underlying mechanism of verapamil-induced cell death involves different caspases in MCF7 and MDA-MB-231. These data sug‑ gest that voltage-gated potassium and calcium channels may be putative targets for pharmaceutical remediation in human invasive ductal carcinomas.
Digital Commons Citation
Berzingi, Seher; Newman, Mackenzie; and Yu, Han-Gang, "Altering Bioelectricity on Inhibition of Human Breast Cancer Cells" (2016). Faculty & Staff Scholarship. 1905.
https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/faculty_publications/1905
Source Citation
Berzingi, S., Newman, M., & Yu, H.-G. (2016). Altering bioelectricity on inhibition of human breast cancer cells. Cancer Cell International, 16(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12935-016-0348-8
Comments
© 2016 The Author(s). This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/ publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.