Antitumor Activity of Indole-3-carbinol in Breast Cancer Cells: Phenotype, Genetic Pattern, DNA Methylation Inversion

Abstract

The effect of indole-3-carbinol on a number of functions and characteristics of MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells and MCF-10A healthy breast tissue cells has been studied. It was shown that indole-3-carbinol significantly reduced the proliferation and migration of MDA-MB-231 cells and does not affect these functions in MCF-10A cells. Incubation of MDA-MB-231 tumor cells with indole-3-carbinol (100 uM) for 48 h resulted in a marked decrease in the expression of the Wnt cascade genes, CCND1 (by 28%), SP1 (by 44%), CDK6 (by 47%), as well as EGFR (by 64%) and FASN (by 22%) genes. Incubation of MCF-10A cell line under the same conditions induced a noticeable decrease in expression of only two genes, EGFR (by 16%) and CDK6 (by 9%). In addition, indole-3-carbinol was also shown to manifest a selective DNA demethylation activity in breast tumor cells and to reverse the process of abnormal methylation and functional blockage of the anti-tumor WIF1 gene. These data indicate that drags containing indole-3-carbinol as an active component can be potential regulators of epigenetic processes in the treatment of breast cancer and other tumors. indole-3-carbinol, breast cancer, epigenetics, Wnt