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Estrogen Modulates Epithelial Breast Cancer Cell Mechanics and Cell-to-Cell Contacts

Excessive estrogen exposure is connected with increased risk of breast cancer and has been shown to promote epithelial-mesenchymal-transition. Malignant cancer cells accumulate changes in cell mechanical and biochemical properties, often leading to cell softening. In this work we have employed atomi...

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Autores principales: Zbiral, Barbara, Weber, Andreas, Iturri, Jagoba, Vivanco, Maria d. M., Toca-Herrera, José L.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8198807/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34071397
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ma14112897
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author Zbiral, Barbara
Weber, Andreas
Iturri, Jagoba
Vivanco, Maria d. M.
Toca-Herrera, José L.
author_facet Zbiral, Barbara
Weber, Andreas
Iturri, Jagoba
Vivanco, Maria d. M.
Toca-Herrera, José L.
author_sort Zbiral, Barbara
collection PubMed
description Excessive estrogen exposure is connected with increased risk of breast cancer and has been shown to promote epithelial-mesenchymal-transition. Malignant cancer cells accumulate changes in cell mechanical and biochemical properties, often leading to cell softening. In this work we have employed atomic force microscopy to probe the influence of estrogen on the viscoelastic properties of MCF-7 breast cancer cells cultured either in normal or hormone free-medium. Estrogen led to a significant softening of the cells in all studied cases, while growing cells in hormone free medium led to an increase in the studied elastic and viscoelastic moduli. In addition, fluorescence microscopy shows that E-cadherin distribution is changed in cells when culturing them under estrogenic conditions. Furthermore, cell-cell contacts seemed to be weakened. These results were supported by AFM imaging showing changes in surfaces roughness, cell-cell contacts and cell height as result of estrogen treatment. This study therefore provides further evidence for the role of estrogen signaling in breast cancer.
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spelling pubmed-81988072021-06-14 Estrogen Modulates Epithelial Breast Cancer Cell Mechanics and Cell-to-Cell Contacts Zbiral, Barbara Weber, Andreas Iturri, Jagoba Vivanco, Maria d. M. Toca-Herrera, José L. Materials (Basel) Article Excessive estrogen exposure is connected with increased risk of breast cancer and has been shown to promote epithelial-mesenchymal-transition. Malignant cancer cells accumulate changes in cell mechanical and biochemical properties, often leading to cell softening. In this work we have employed atomic force microscopy to probe the influence of estrogen on the viscoelastic properties of MCF-7 breast cancer cells cultured either in normal or hormone free-medium. Estrogen led to a significant softening of the cells in all studied cases, while growing cells in hormone free medium led to an increase in the studied elastic and viscoelastic moduli. In addition, fluorescence microscopy shows that E-cadherin distribution is changed in cells when culturing them under estrogenic conditions. Furthermore, cell-cell contacts seemed to be weakened. These results were supported by AFM imaging showing changes in surfaces roughness, cell-cell contacts and cell height as result of estrogen treatment. This study therefore provides further evidence for the role of estrogen signaling in breast cancer. MDPI 2021-05-28 /pmc/articles/PMC8198807/ /pubmed/34071397 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ma14112897 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/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 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Zbiral, Barbara
Weber, Andreas
Iturri, Jagoba
Vivanco, Maria d. M.
Toca-Herrera, José L.
Estrogen Modulates Epithelial Breast Cancer Cell Mechanics and Cell-to-Cell Contacts
title Estrogen Modulates Epithelial Breast Cancer Cell Mechanics and Cell-to-Cell Contacts
title_full Estrogen Modulates Epithelial Breast Cancer Cell Mechanics and Cell-to-Cell Contacts
title_fullStr Estrogen Modulates Epithelial Breast Cancer Cell Mechanics and Cell-to-Cell Contacts
title_full_unstemmed Estrogen Modulates Epithelial Breast Cancer Cell Mechanics and Cell-to-Cell Contacts
title_short Estrogen Modulates Epithelial Breast Cancer Cell Mechanics and Cell-to-Cell Contacts
title_sort estrogen modulates epithelial breast cancer cell mechanics and cell-to-cell contacts
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8198807/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34071397
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ma14112897
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