Plasticity of breast cancer, origin of hormonal therapy resistance and cancer stemness.

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26461373
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Endocrinology
• Research Institution: Tohoku University
• Principal Investigator: Hayashi Shin-ichi 東北大学, 医学系研究科, 教授 (60144862)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: ER発現 / ホルモン療法耐性 / シグナル経路 / 癌幹細胞性 / 乳がん

Outline of Final Research Achievements

We have established 8 kinds of hormonal therapy resistant cell lines from ER-positive breast cancer cells which were stably introduced ERE-GFP reporter plasmid. The analysis of these cell lines revealed individual molecular mechanisms of hormonal therapy resistance. Then, we analyzed cancer stemness property of these resistant cell lines (AI-resistant and fulvestrant resistant cell lines) in terms of sphere formation, side population, CD44/CD24 expression etc. The resistant cell lines which have high ER expression showed high cancer stemness property, but cell lines which lost ER expression indicated low cancer stemness marker expression. These findings will provide useful information to develop new therapeutic strategy for metastatic breast cancer.

Free Research Field

分子腫瘍学