Evaluation of 6-mercaptopurine in a cell culture model of adaptable triple-negative breast cancer with metastatic potential.

ABSTRACT: Progenitor-like cancer cells that can survive in reversible quiescence when faced with various challenges in the body are often behind disease progression. A lack of glutamine in culture medium, which eliminates >99.9% of proliferating SUM149 triple-negative breast cancer cells, selects such adaptable, pan-resistant cells. Our data support the hypothesis that a lack of glutamine forces the selection of an epigenetic state that does not require a high level of TET2, thus selecting an "undifferentiated" therapy-resistant phenotype as seen in TET2-mutant cancers. Our data suggesting that highly adaptable cells are generated through reprograming of the epigenome and transcriptome led us to evaluate low-dose 6-mercaptopurine as a potential therapy in our model. We found that a long treatment wi

SUBMITTER: Singh B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6557209 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature