Embryoprotein TWIST distribution in breast cancer cells MDA-MB-231 treated with 5-Fluorouracil and malnutrition

Abstract

TWIST is a transcription factor that belongs to the family of helix-loop-helix proteins involved in metastasis with essential role regulating cell movement during early development, as well as in the tumor progression and metastasis of many cancers including breast cancer. It will be interesting to study the relation among cancer chemotherapy, malnutrition and the transcription factors like TWIST in order to explore the risk to metastasis. We used breast cancer line MDA-MB-231. Cell cultures were treated with 5-Fluorouracil (5-Fu), as well as changes in serum and nonessentials amino acid (NEAA), to explore the cell viability and the cellular distribution of TWIST by immunocytochemistry. Our results indicate that cell viability decreased significantly with 5-Fu treatment whereas no changes were observed in malnutrition treatment. On the other hand, TWIST protein significantly increased its distribution in cytoplasm of treated groups with malnutrition as well as in those treated with 5-Fu compared with the control. These results suggest that TWIST translocation was modified by the treatments and further studies are necessary to suggest that TWIST could be a tag protein to avoid metastasis.

The Role of Transcription Factor TWIST in Cancer Cells

“…The paclitaxel-induced apoptosis increased with the culture time at 24, 48 and 72 hours [48]. MDA-MB-231 cell line treated with 5-Fluorouracil and in absence of nonessential amino acids showed modifications in TWIST sub-cellular distribution, keeping TWIST presence only within cytoplasm compared to the control cells where TWIST protein was located in both compartments cytoplasm and nucleus [49]. Contrary to this, some chemotherapeutic agents can increase TWIST expression in carcinoma cells.…”