Snail Inhibits Lung Colonization And Metastasis In Luminal Type A Breast Cancer Cells

Proceedings: AACR Annual Meeting 2014; April 5-9, 2014; San Diego, CA Breast cancer is the most common malignant disease in Western women. In these patients, it is not the primary tumor, but its metastases at distant sites that are the main cause of death. Breast cancer include five biologically distinct subgroups including Luminal A (ER+ ck8h/ck18h), Luminal B (ER+ ck8l/ck18l), Basal (ER- ck5+/ck17+) and ERBB2+ (ER- ERBB2+ GFRBP7+) and normal breast-like types. The time to distant metastasis and overall survive rate were distinct among these subgroups. Luminal type has the best prognosis, while basal type or ERBB2+ has the worst prognosis. What mechanism involves in this difference remains to be elucidated. In the current study, we demonstrated (1) Luminal type A tumor such as MCF7 when overexpressed with active mutant form of Snail gene increased in the expression of markers for epithelial mesenchymal transition such as Vimentin, N-cadherin and Fibronectin but decreased in the expression of E-cadherin compared to cells overexpressed with control vectors of wild type Snail gene. Moreover, these cells increased in the capacity of migration and invasion. (2) While, MCF7 overexpressed with active mutant form of Snail decreased in the ability to survive and form sphere in serum-free medium, the in vitro colonization, and were unable to metastasize to lung.Therefore, the elucidation of the differences in molecules or signaling pathways involve in controlling migration, invasion and distant metastasis may have a therapeutically beneficial effect on breast cancer treatment. Citation Format: Shih-Pei Lin, Shih-Chieh Hung. Snail inhibits lung colonization and metastasis in luminal type A breast cancer cells. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 105th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2014 Apr 5-9; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2014;74(19 Suppl):Abstract nr 1127. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2014-1127