Breast Cancer Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Breast Cancer, including details on symptoms, genetics, screening, treatment, information.

Isoform specific changes in PPAR alpha and beta in colon and breast cancer with differentiation.

Aung CS, Faddy HM, Lister EJ, Monteith GR, Roberts-Thomson SJ

The School of Pharmacy, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Qld 4072, Australia.

To investigate the role of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs) alpha and beta in the differentiation of colon cancer cells, we differentiated HT-29 cells using sodium butyrate (NaB) and culturing post-confluence and assessed differentiation using the marker intestinal alkaline phosphatase. While PPARalpha levels only changed with culturing post confluence, PPARbeta levels increased independent of the method of differentiation. To explore further the differences induced by NaB, we assessed changes in both PPAR isoforms in MCF-7 breast cancer cells cultured in the presence of NaB over 48h. Again a very different expression pattern was observed with PPARalpha increasing after 4h and remaining elevated, while PPARbeta increased transiently. Our studies suggest that the expression of PPARs is dependent upon both the method of differentiation and on time. Moreover, these studies show that changes in PPARalpha levels are not required for the differentiation of colon cancer cell lines, whereas changes in PPARbeta are more closely associated with differentiation.

Published 3 January 2006 in Biochem Biophys Res Commun, 340(2): 656-60.
Full-text of this article is available online (may require subscription).

© 2004-2008 Breast Cancer Research Today. All Rights Reserved.