Breast Cancer Cell Line Classification and Its Relevance with Breast Tumor Subtyping

Abstract

Breast cancer cell lines have been widely used for breast cancer modelling which encompasses a panel of diseases with distinct phenotypical associations. Though cell lines provide unlimited homogenous materials for tumor studies and are relatively easy to culture, they are known to accumulate mutations duringthe initial establishment and subsequent series of cultivations. Thus, whether breast cancer cell line heterogeneity reflects that of carcinoma remains an important issue to resolve before drawing any reliable conclusion at the tumor level using cell lines. Inconsistent nomenclatures used for breast cancer cell line subtyping and the different number of subtypes grouped for cell lines and tumors make their direct matching elusive. By analyzing the molecular features of 92 breast cancer cell lines as documented by different literatures, we categorize 84 cell lines into 5 groups to be consistent with breast tumor classification. After combing through these cell lines, we summarized the molecular features, genetically and epigenetically, of each subtype, and manually documented 10 cell lines lacking explicit information on subtyping. Nine cell lines, either found inconsistent on their primary molecular features from different studies or being contaminated at the origin, are not suggested as the first choice for experimental use. We conclude that breast tumor cell lines, though having a high mutational frequency with many uncertainties and could not fully capture breast cancer heterogeneity, are feasible but crude models for tumors of the same subtype. New cell lines with enriched interferon regulated genes need to be established to enlarge the coverage of cell lines on tumor heterogeneity.

Single cell transcriptomic heterogeneity in invasive ductal and lobular breast cancer cells

“…Expression of key breast cancer genes were examined ( Supplementary Figure 1), including hormone receptors (ESR1 for estrogen receptor, PGR for progesterone receptor, ERBB2 for human epidermal growth factor receptor 2), histology marker (CDH1 for E-cadherin) and proliferation indicator (MKI67 for Ki67). Consistent with the previous characterizations [25][26][27] , ESR1 was expressed higher in the six breast cancer cell lines compared to MCF10A or HEK293;…”

Oncolytic activity of canine distemper virus in canine mammary tubular adenocarcinoma cells

“…CIPp cells with human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER‐2/neu)‐positive were originally extracted from a female dog diagnosed with CMTAC with regional lymph node metastasis at clinical stage IV . HER‐2/neu‐positive CMTs are associated with indicators of poor prognosis such as high clinical stage, histological grade and invasive type of growth, and these findings are compatible with those observed in human breast cancer . Spontaneous CMTAC has also been considered as a promising animal model of some histological subtype of human female carcinogenesis .…”

“…21,26 HER-2/neu-positive CMTs are associated with indicators of poor prognosis such as high clinical stage, histological grade and invasive type of growth, and these findings are compatible with those observed in human breast cancer. [5][6][7]27,28 Spontaneous CMTAC has also been considered as a promising animal model of some histological subtype of human female carcinogenesis. 3,4 In this study, we showed that CDV-L was able to infect, efficiently replicate in, and lyse CMTAC CIPp cells.…”

miR‐16 enhances miR‐302/367‐induced reprogramming and tumor suppression in breast cancer cells

“…MDA-MB-231 is a TGFβ1 responsive cell line while SK-BR-3 cells are TGFβ1 resistance. 37 Furthermore, MDA-MB-231 cell line is a basal type while SK-BR-3 is a luminal-type breast cancer cell line, 38 and it has been shown that inhibition of MYC in basal-type BC cells by genetic or pharmacological methods leads to higher sensitivity to TGFβ-stimulated invasion and metastasis. 39 The same study also reported that the mentioned signaling loop only exists in basal BC cells, but not in luminal BC cells.…”