Therapeutic metformin/AMPK activation promotes the angiogenic phenotype in the ERα negative MDA-MB-435 breast cancer model

Excerpt

MDA-MB-435 cell line has been used for decades as a model of metastatic human breast cancer [1]. This cell line was derived at M.D. Anderson in 1976 from a pleural effusion from a 31-year old woman with a history of breast cancer [2, 3]. However, recent advances in gene expression analysis, which allow the opportunity to more fully characterize tumour cell lines, revealed that the pattern of gene expression for MDA-MB-435 is more closely resembles melanoma cell lines than breast tumour lines [4]. These findings prompted Ellison et al. to undertake a more detailed study of the characteristics of MDA-MB-435 [5]. In brief, they confirmed that breast-specific genes were not detectably expressed in MDA-MB-435 compared to most of the breast tumour cell lines they were investigating. Furthermore, melanocyte-specific genes were expressed in MDA-MB-435, as well as in most of the other melanoma cell lines, but were not detectable in the other breast tumour cell lines. Additionally, xenografts of MDA-MB-435 implanted into mammary fat pads of female Severe Combined Immunodeficiency (SCID) mice showed immunohistochemical staining consistent with melanocytic origin. …