C(2)-Ceramide-Induced Rb-Dominant Senescence-Like Phenotype Leads to Human Breast Cancer MCF-7 Escape from p53-Dependent Cell Death

Ceramide is a sphingolipid which regulates a variety of signaling pathways in eukaryotic cells. Exogenous ceramide has been shown to induce cellular apoptosis. In this study, we observed that exogenous ceramide induced two distinct morphologies of cell fate following C(2)-ceramide treatment between the two breast cancer cell lines MCF-7 (wild type p53) and MDA-MB-231 (mutant p53) cells. The growth assessment showed that C(2)-ceramide caused significant growth inhibition and apoptosis in MDA-MB-231 cells through down-regulating the expression of mutant p53 whereas up-regulating the expression of pro-apoptotic Bad, and the proteolytic activation of caspase-3. However, senescence-associated (SA)-β-galactosidase (β-gal) was regulated in MCF-7 cells after C(2)-ceramide treatment. The results of proliferation and apoptosis assays showed that MCF-7 cells were more resistant to C(2)-ceramide treatment compared to MDA-MB-231 cells. Furthermore, C(2)-ceramide treatment induced a time-responsive increase in Rb protein, a key regulator of senescence accompanied with the upregulation of both mRNA level and protein level of SA-genes PAI-1 and TGaseII in MCF-7 but not in MDA-MB-231 cells, suggesting that some cancer cells escape apoptosis through modulating senescence-like phenotype. The results of our present study depicted the mechanism of C(2)-ceramide-resistant breast cancer cells, which might benefit the strategic development of ceramide-based chemotherapeutics against cancer in the future.