Ultrastructural Analysis of Inflammatory Breast Cancer Cell Clusters in an Ex Vivo Environment Mechanically Mimicking the Lymph Vascular System.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) is a rare form of breast cancer with a poor prognosis. IBC is characterized by florid lymphovascular tumor emboli in the skin and the parenchyma of the breast. We hypothesized that the formation of these emboli/clusters plays a pivotal role in IBC metastasis and its rapid progression, and that their structure and function may be a key to identifying molecular biological differences between IBC and non IBC.

Methods

Mechanical methods were used to mimic the lymph fluid viscosity by adding 2.25% of PEG8000 to the media. Clusters were obtained for IBC tumor cell lines (SUM149 and IBC-3), non IBC tumor cell lines (MDA-MB-231, MDA-MB-468, and MCF7), and a non-tumorigenic human mammary epithelial cell line (MCF10A). Clusters were analyzed

SUBMITTER: Fujii Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8671823 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature