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A Step Forward in Breast Cancer Research: From a Natural-Like Experimental Model to a Preliminary Photothermal Approach

Breast cancer is one of the most frequently diagnosed malignancies and common causes of cancer death in women. Recent studies suggest that environmental exposures to certain chemicals, such as 7,12-Dimethylbenzanthracene (DMBA), a chemical present in tobacco, may increase the risk of developing brea...

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Autores principales: Costa, Eduardo, Ferreira-Gonçalves, Tânia, Cardoso, Miguel, Coelho, João M. P., Gaspar, Maria Manuela, Faísca, Pedro, Ascensão, Lia, Cabrita, António S., Reis, Catarina Pinto, Figueiredo, Isabel V.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7765974/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33353068
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms21249681
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author Costa, Eduardo
Ferreira-Gonçalves, Tânia
Cardoso, Miguel
Coelho, João M. P.
Gaspar, Maria Manuela
Faísca, Pedro
Ascensão, Lia
Cabrita, António S.
Reis, Catarina Pinto
Figueiredo, Isabel V.
author_facet Costa, Eduardo
Ferreira-Gonçalves, Tânia
Cardoso, Miguel
Coelho, João M. P.
Gaspar, Maria Manuela
Faísca, Pedro
Ascensão, Lia
Cabrita, António S.
Reis, Catarina Pinto
Figueiredo, Isabel V.
author_sort Costa, Eduardo
collection PubMed
description Breast cancer is one of the most frequently diagnosed malignancies and common causes of cancer death in women. Recent studies suggest that environmental exposures to certain chemicals, such as 7,12-Dimethylbenzanthracene (DMBA), a chemical present in tobacco, may increase the risk of developing breast cancer later in life. The first-line treatments for breast cancer (surgery, chemotherapy or a combination of both) are generally invasive and frequently associated with severe side effects and high comorbidity. Consequently, novel approaches are strongly required to find more natural-like experimental models that better reflect the tumors’ etiology, physiopathology and response to treatments, as well as to find more targeted, efficient and minimally invasive treatments. This study proposes the development and an in deep biological characterization of an experimental model using DMBA-tumor-induction in Sprague-Dawley female rats. Moreover, a photothermal therapy approach using a near-infrared laser coupled with gold nanoparticles was preliminarily assessed. The gold nanoparticles were functionalized with Epidermal Growth Factor, and their physicochemical properties and in vitro effects were characterized. DMBA proved to be a very good and selective inductor of breast cancer, with 100% incidence and inducing an average of 4.7 tumors per animal. Epigenetic analysis showed that tumors classified with worst prognosis were hypomethylated. The tumor-induced rats were then subjected to a preliminary treatment using functionalized gold nanoparticles and its activation by laser (650–900 nm). The treatment outcomes presented very promising alterations in terms of tumor histology, confirming the presence of necrosis in most of the cases. Although this study revealed encouraging results as a breast cancer therapy, it is important to define tumor eligibility and specific efficiency criteria to further assess its application in breast cancer treatment on other species.
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spelling pubmed-77659742020-12-28 A Step Forward in Breast Cancer Research: From a Natural-Like Experimental Model to a Preliminary Photothermal Approach Costa, Eduardo Ferreira-Gonçalves, Tânia Cardoso, Miguel Coelho, João M. P. Gaspar, Maria Manuela Faísca, Pedro Ascensão, Lia Cabrita, António S. Reis, Catarina Pinto Figueiredo, Isabel V. Int J Mol Sci Article Breast cancer is one of the most frequently diagnosed malignancies and common causes of cancer death in women. Recent studies suggest that environmental exposures to certain chemicals, such as 7,12-Dimethylbenzanthracene (DMBA), a chemical present in tobacco, may increase the risk of developing breast cancer later in life. The first-line treatments for breast cancer (surgery, chemotherapy or a combination of both) are generally invasive and frequently associated with severe side effects and high comorbidity. Consequently, novel approaches are strongly required to find more natural-like experimental models that better reflect the tumors’ etiology, physiopathology and response to treatments, as well as to find more targeted, efficient and minimally invasive treatments. This study proposes the development and an in deep biological characterization of an experimental model using DMBA-tumor-induction in Sprague-Dawley female rats. Moreover, a photothermal therapy approach using a near-infrared laser coupled with gold nanoparticles was preliminarily assessed. The gold nanoparticles were functionalized with Epidermal Growth Factor, and their physicochemical properties and in vitro effects were characterized. DMBA proved to be a very good and selective inductor of breast cancer, with 100% incidence and inducing an average of 4.7 tumors per animal. Epigenetic analysis showed that tumors classified with worst prognosis were hypomethylated. The tumor-induced rats were then subjected to a preliminary treatment using functionalized gold nanoparticles and its activation by laser (650–900 nm). The treatment outcomes presented very promising alterations in terms of tumor histology, confirming the presence of necrosis in most of the cases. Although this study revealed encouraging results as a breast cancer therapy, it is important to define tumor eligibility and specific efficiency criteria to further assess its application in breast cancer treatment on other species. MDPI 2020-12-18 /pmc/articles/PMC7765974/ /pubmed/33353068 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms21249681 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Costa, Eduardo
Ferreira-Gonçalves, Tânia
Cardoso, Miguel
Coelho, João M. P.
Gaspar, Maria Manuela
Faísca, Pedro
Ascensão, Lia
Cabrita, António S.
Reis, Catarina Pinto
Figueiredo, Isabel V.
A Step Forward in Breast Cancer Research: From a Natural-Like Experimental Model to a Preliminary Photothermal Approach
title A Step Forward in Breast Cancer Research: From a Natural-Like Experimental Model to a Preliminary Photothermal Approach
title_full A Step Forward in Breast Cancer Research: From a Natural-Like Experimental Model to a Preliminary Photothermal Approach
title_fullStr A Step Forward in Breast Cancer Research: From a Natural-Like Experimental Model to a Preliminary Photothermal Approach
title_full_unstemmed A Step Forward in Breast Cancer Research: From a Natural-Like Experimental Model to a Preliminary Photothermal Approach
title_short A Step Forward in Breast Cancer Research: From a Natural-Like Experimental Model to a Preliminary Photothermal Approach
title_sort step forward in breast cancer research: from a natural-like experimental model to a preliminary photothermal approach
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7765974/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33353068
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms21249681
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