Background
Microtubules are crucial structures for living cells as they are involved in many biological functions including cell motility, cell division, intracellular transport, cellular architecture as well as other cell types specific functions [
1]. Their dynamic property involved in cell division makes out of microtubules major targets for anticancer drugs. The drugs commonly used are divided into two main families of taxanes and vinca alkaloids which are known to suppress microtubule dynamics by stabilizing or destabilizing the microtubules respectively and thus inhibiting the metaphase anaphase transition, blocking mitosis and inducing apoptosis [
2]. Taxanes and vinca alkaloids are among many drugs used to treat breast cancer [
3]. However, resistance to anticancer drugs is appearing, inducing a need to understand and identify the mechanisms behind of it. One of the mechanisms responsible of the resistance phenotype is the alteration in the dynamic properties of microtubules. Microtubules have two main dynamic behaviors. First they exhibit a dynamic instability which consists of apparently random transitions between slow elongation and rapid shortening states [
4]. Another important property is the treadmilling by which tubulin subunits continuously flux from one end of the polymer to the other, due to net differences in the critical subunit concentrations at the opposite microtubule ends [
5].
Microtubules are made of α/β-tubulin heterodimers whose proper folding involves many chaperonins as well as protein cofactors [
6,
7]. After being synthesized, the tubulins are sequestered by cytosolic chaperonins for their correct folding and preparation for further interactions with the tubulin binding cofactors TBC [
8,
9]. The proper folding pathways of α-tubulin and β-tubulin into the dimers are interdependent and five TBC (TBCA to TBCE) are involved. TBCB and TBCA bind to α- and β-tubulins respectively and the formed complexes serve as reservoirs of tubulin peptides in the cytoplasm [
10,
11]. The α- and β-tubulins are then delivered to TBCE and TBCD respectively where they form a supercomplex with TBCC (TBCE/α-tubulin/TBCC/TBCD/β-tubulin). After hydrolysis of GTP by β-tubulin, this complex releases activated α/β-tubulin heterodimers which can readily polymerize into microtubules [
10,
12,
13].
Little is known regarding the role of TBCs in cancer. It has been shown that the inhibition of TBCA in MCF7 and HeLa cells modified the microtubule structures, caused cell cycle arrest in G1 and cell death [
14]. TBCB and TBCE have been found to physically interact and induce microtubule depolymerization
in vitro [
15]. In addition to their roles in the proper folding of microtubules, these cofactors might have other roles involving microtubules. It was recently shown that microtubules contribute to the mechanism of cell detachment through TBCD by transporting it to the cell membrane where it interacts with adherent and tight junctions [
16]. It has been described that TBCD interacts with Arl2, ADP ribosylation factor like 2 (Arl2) which dissociates it from the α/β tubulin heterodimers [
17]. A study in
Arabidopsis thaliana showed that TBCC plays an important role in releasing competent α/β-tubulin polymerizable heterodimers [
18,
19]. Another study performed in X-linked retinitis pigmentosa 2 (RP2) showed that RP2 responsible for the progressive degeneration of the photoreceptor cells and TBCC have similar sequences. Both of these proteins were found to be activators of GTPases but only TBCC is capable of catalyzing the heterodimerization of tubulins [
20].
Since TBCC is crucial for the proper folding of tubulins and their polymerization into microtubules and since little is known about this protein with respect to breast cancer, we were interested in studying the impact of TBCC overexpression on the phenotype of tumor cells as well as on microtubule content and dynamics and response to antimicrotubule drugs. We have found that overexpressing TBCC influenced cell cycle distribution of breast cancer cells in our model along with an increase in percentage of cells in G2-M phase of cell cycle and a slower mitosis. The dynamics of microtubules were reduced and the content of polymerizable tubulins was decreased. Finally, cells overexpressing TBCC were more sensitive to microtubules targeting agents both in vivo and in vitro.
Methods
Plasmid construction
The pcDNA6/V5-His A plasmid was used to clone the 1 kb human TBCC cDNA (NM_003192) extracted from hTerT-HME-1 human mammary epithelium cells (ATCC). The mRNA was extracted using Trizol reagent (Invitrogen, Cergy Pontoise, France) following the manufacturer's instructions. Reverse transcription into cDNA was then done using Moloney leukaemia virus reverse transcriptase (Invitrogen, Cergy Pontoise, France) for 1 hour at 37°C as described in the manufacturer's manual. The cDNA obtained was then amplified by the full length TBCC forward GCCAATATGGAGTCCGTCAG and reverse CAACTGCTTAGTCCCACTGGA primers using a high fidelity polymerase according to the manufacturer's instructions (Jena Bioscience, Germany). The PCR conditions were 30 cycles of denaturation at 94°C for 1 min, annealing at 60°C for 1 min and elongation at 72°C for 1 min. Purified amplicon was subcloned into pGEMTeasy and thereafter into pcDNA6 in the sense orientation (designated as pcDNA6/C+) using EcoRI (Fermentas, France).
Cell culture and transfections
MCF7 (human mammary adenocarcinoma, ATCC) cells and transfectants were grown in DMEM supplemented with penicillin (200 UI/ml), streptomycin (200 μg/ml) and fetal bovine serum (10%) at 37°C in a humidified atmosphere containing 5% CO2. Cells were transfected with pcDNA6/C+ or empty pcDNA6 using lipofectin (Invitrogen, Cergy Pontoise, France) following the manufacturer's instructions. The stable transfectants were obtained through blasticidin selection (20 μg/ml) (KN-1004, Euromedex, France). Cloning of the populations of cells was performed for each of the two batch populations and 3 clones representative of each population were selected for further characterization, on the basis of their differential levels of expression of the protein TBCC. The clones designated MC+1, MC+2 and MC+3 represent the clones overexpressing TBCC. The clones designated MP6.1, MP6.2 and MP6.3 represent the control clones.
Western blot analysis
Protein extraction and western blot analysis were performed as described previously [
21]. The antibodies used were anti β III-tubulin (clone Tuj1, 1/2500; Covalab, Lyon, France), anti p53 (clone DO7, 1/1000; Dako, Denmark), anti β-actin (clone AC-15, 1/5000), anti α-tubulin (clone DM1A, 1/1000), anti β-tubulin (clone 2.1, 1/1000), anti tyrosinated α-tubulin (clone TUB-1A2, 1/1000) and acetylated α-tubulin (clone 6-11B-1, 1/1000) from Sigma Aldrich (St Quentin Fallavier, France). The polyclonal antibodies against TBCC (1/800) and TBCD (1/3000) were generously provided by N. Cowan (New York University Medial Center, USA) and those against Arl2 (1/1000) and Glu-tubulin (1/1000) were generously provided by R. Kahn (Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, USA) and L. Lafanechère (Centre de Criblage pour des Molécules Bio-Actives, Grenoble), respectively. Expression levels of the proteins were standardized against the β-actin.
RNA interference assays
A desalted duplex siRNA targeting TBCC 5'-CUGAGCAACUGCACGGUCA-3' and its corresponding scrambled sequence were designed by Sigma-Aldrich (St Quentin Fallavier, France). The siRNAs (200 nM) were transfected into 25 × 104 of MCF7, MP6.1 or MC+1 cells using oligofectamine (Invitrogen, Cergy Pontoise, France) according to the manufacturer's protocol on two consecutive days. Protein analyses by western blot or flow cytometry experiment were done on the third day after transfection.
Cell proliferation analysis
Cell proliferation was estimated using the methylthiazoletetrazolium (MTT) and BrdU assay. For the MTT test, cells (13 × 104) were seeded in a 6-well plate and incubated at 37°C. Every 24 h and for one week, MTT (3 mg) was added to each well of each plate. After 2 hrs of incubation at 37°C, supernatants were removed, formazan crystals solubilized with 3 ml of isopropanol-HCl-H2O (90:1:9, v/v/v) and plates scanned. The absorbance was measured spectrophotometrically with a microplate reader (Labsystem Multiskanner RC) and the MTT values were obtained as subtraction of absorbances read at 540 and 690 nm wavelengths. The nonradioactive BrdU-based cell proliferation assay (Roche, Basel, Switzerland) was performed according to the manufacturer's protocol. Treated and untreated cells (5 × 103 cells per well) were seeded in a 96-well plastic plate and the assay was performed after 48, 72, 96 and 168 hours. Treated cells were exposed to either 0.5 nM or 1 nM of gemcitabine (Lilly, IN, USA) for one week. BrdU incorporation into the DNA was determined by measuring the absorbance at 450 on an ELISA plate reader.
Analysis of cell cycle distribution by flow cytometry
Cells were incubated 24 h with either 10 nM Paclitaxel (Bristol-Myers Squibb, New York, USA) or 1 nM vinorelbine (Pierre Fabre medicaments, Boulogne, France). Treated and untreated cells were then collected and incubated 1 hour at 4°C with propidium iodide (0.05 mg/ml) solution containing Nonidet-P40 (0.05%). Cells were analyzed using a FACS Calibur flow cytomoter (BD Biosciences Europe, Erembodegem, Belgium) and cell cycle distribution was determined using Modfit LT 2.0™ software (Veritysoftware Inc, Topsham, USA). For the siRNA's transfected clones, the cell cycle was studied 48 h after the first transfection.
Long time-lapse microscopy and analysis of mitosis
Cells (3 × 105) were seeded in a 35 mm cell culture dish, placed in culture medium maintained at 37°C in a 5% CO2 atmosphere and observed using an inverted time lapse microscope (Olympus IX50) at the Centre Commun de Quantimétrie (Université Claude Bernard Lyon, France). Images were acquired every 2 minutes for 24 hours using a numerical CFW-1308M 1360X1024 camera (Scion, Frederick, USA) driven by ImageJ software (NIH, Bethesda, USA). 30 complete mitoses were analysed for each of the MP6.1 and MC+1 clones using ImageJ software (NIH, Bethesda, USA).
Immunofluorescence
Cells (MP6.1 and MC+1) exposed or not to 10 nM of paclitaxel for 24 hours were fixed by 4% paraformaldehyde during 15 minutes at room temperature and permeabilized using a PBS-Triton X-100 0.1% solution. Non specific sites were blocked using a solution containing 0.1% bovine serum albumin and 1% fetal calf serum. Cells were incubated with either a 1:100 of an antibody against β-tubulin (clone 2.1, Sigma Aldrich) or a 1:30 dilution of a monoclonal antibody against TBCC (Abnova, Taiwan) followed by a secondary FITC-antibody (Dako, Denmark). DNA staining was performed using diaminido-phenyl-indol (DAPI) (Roche, Manheim, Germany).
Images were obtained using a laser scanning confocal TCS Sp2 DMRXA microscope x63 objective (Leica Microsystems; Wetzlar, Germany) at the Centre Commun de Quantimétrie (Université Claude Bernard Lyon, France).
Separation and quantification of soluble unfolded tubulins, polymerizable αβ-tubulin heterodimers and microtubules
Cells (20 × 106) were harvested and lysed in 200 μl of buffer (100 mM Pipes, pH 6.7, 1 mM EGTA, and 1 mM MgSO4) by two freeze-thaw cycle. Lysed cells were centrifuged at 12,000 × g for 15 minutes at 4°C. The supernatant was then ultracentrifuged (100,000 × g for 1 h at 20°C) and separated into a supernatant containing "soluble tubulins" and a pellet containing "microtubules". The microtubule fraction was resuspended in 100 μl of lysis buffer and 100 μl of the supernatant were incubated with 1 mM of GTP at 35°C for 30 minutes to allow tubulin polymerization then ultracentrifuged at 50,000 × g for 45 minutes at 35°C. The resulting pellet contained the "polymerizable tubulin" (PT) heterodimers and the supernatant contained "nonpolymerizable tubulin" (NPT) heterodimers, included tubulin peptides complexed with tubulin binding cofactors. The different fractions of tubulins were run on silver stained gels following manufacturer's recommendations (Amersham Biosciences AB, Sweden). After coloration, the single band observed at 55 kDa for the polymerizable tubulin heterodimers confirmed the success of purification (data not shown). The experiment was performed in triplicate using the two cell lines MP6.1 and MC+1. Densitometric quantification of western blots was performed with ImageJ software (NIH, USA).
Time lapse fluorescent microscopy and analysis of microtubule dynamics
Cells (3 × 105) were seeded in 6-well plate with circular glasses of 24 mm in their bottom and transfected with the pAcGFP1-tubulin vector (Clontech) using lipofectin (Invitrogen) following the manufacturer's instructions. The glasses containing the cells were placed in culture medium maintained at 37°C in a 5% CO2 atmosphere in a time lapse inverted microscope (Olympus IX50) at the Centre Commun de Quantimétrie (Lyon, Université Claude Bernard, France). Cells were imaged with a numerical CFW-1308M 1360X1024 camera (Scion, Frederick, USA) driven by imageJ software (NIH, Bethesda, USA) using a 40× oil immersion lens (Zeiss, Göttingen, Germany). 30 pictures of the cell's microtubules were taken at 4 seconds intervals. The positions of the plus-ends of individual MT in peripheral lamellar regions of cells were tracked over time using ImageJ® software and graphed using Microsoft® Excel spreadsheet as position versus time to generate a 'life-history plot' for each MT. Growth and shortening rates and durations were derived by regression analysis. A difference of >0.5 μm between any two consecutive points was considered as a growth or shortening event. Transitions into depolymerisation or shortening are termed catastrophes, and transitions from shortening to growth or pause are called rescue. The catastrophe and rescue frequencies per unit time were calculated by dividing respectively the number of transitions from growth and pause to shortening and the number of transitions form shortening and pause to growth by the sum of the time in growth and pause. Dynamicity represents total tubulin exchange at the MT end and was calculated by dividing the sum of total length grown and shortened by the MT life span. The experiment was performed twice on 50 microtubules of the two clones MP6.1 and MC+1.
In vivo growth analysis
Female CB17/SCID mice purchased from Charles River Laboratories (Arbresle, France) were bred under pathogen-free conditions at the animal facility of our institute. Animals were treated in accordance with the European Union guidelines and French laws for the laboratory animal care and use. The animals were kept in conventional housing. Access to food and water was not restricted. All mice used were 5 to 6 weeks old at the time of cells injections. This study was approved by the local animal ethical committee. Mice were divided into six groups of six mice each which corresponds to the injections of MP6.1, MP6.2, MP6.3, MC+1, MC+2 and MC+3 cells. 3 × 106 cells were injected subcutaneously in mice with 50% matrigel (BD Biosciences, Belgium). The six mice were divided into two groups of treated and untreated mice. In the treated groups, paclitaxel was injected intraperitoneally in a dose of 10 mg/kg on the same day and a week after. Mice were weighed and the tumor size was measured twice per week with an electronic caliper. The volume was then computed by considering the tumor as a sphere with the formula 4/3 (3.14 × r3), r as the mean radius. Animals were euthanized either when one of the diameters of the tumor exceeded 17 mm, or if any potential suffering of the animal was observed or if weight loss exceeded 10%.
Discussion
Tubulin binding cofactor C is a crucial protein for the proper folding of α- and β-tubulins to form heterodimers able to polymerize into microtubules. In this study, the major aim was to investigate the impact of TBCC overexpression on the proliferation, cell cycle distribution and tumorigenesis of MCF7 cells as well as on the microtubule contents and dynamics. Since the antimicrotubule agents are common treatments for breast cancer, we examined the response of our models to these treatments both
in vivo and
in vitro. In addition to this, expression levels of α and β tubulins were found to be involved in predicting the response to treatments in many cancers [
22,
23]. Some posttranslational modifications of α tubulins like detyrosination are of high occurrence in breast cancer [
24]. This differential expression level of tubulins in many cancers has made of them targets for treatments.
The overexpression of TBCC in MCF7 cells profoundly altered the distribution of tubulin monomers amongst cellular fractions and diminished the content and dynamicity of their microtubules but did not prevent the cells from completing mitosis and proliferating correctly. We must insist however on the fairly low differences in TBCC content observed between transfected cells and controls, suggesting that higher levels of expression may be incompatible with cell survival. Overexpression of TBCC had a major impact on tubulin fractions, with a large increase in the nonpolymerizable fraction and a consequent decrease in the soluble tubulin dimers fraction. The nonpolymerizable tubulin fraction consists of the pool of tubulins in the α-tubulin/TBCE/TBCC/TBCD/β-tubulin complex, the pool of α-tubulins bound either to TBCB or TBCE or TBCE/TBCC/TBCD/β-tubulin, and the pool of β-tubulins bound either to TBCA or TBCD or α-tubulin/TBCE/TBCC/TBCD. The reduced availability of α/β tubulins to form polymerizable heterodimers may be due to the fact that a large amount of the monomers is included in TBCC-containing complexes. Of note and contrary to a commonly accepted tubulin dogma, MC+ cells appear to have disequilibrium between the contents of total α-tubulin and β-tubulin. It is classically considered that such disequilibrium would be lethal for mammalian cells. However in this model the increased content can be attributed to a specific enrichment in the non-functional fraction of β-tubulin.
During mitosis, especially at the level of anaphase chromosome movement, microtubules disassemble by depolymerization and release free heterodimers. The heterodimers released can be directly recruited by the excess of TBCC in the cytoplasm. Indeed, TBCC appears to be highly present in the cytoplasm during mitosis as observed in cells blocked in mitosis by paclitaxel. We hypothesize that equilibrium exists between the soluble amount of nonpolymerizable and polymerizable tubulins in MC+ cells and the cells' requirement for microtubules. We also observed a strong impact of TBCC content on microtubule dynamics. At the onset of mitosis the interphase microtubule network disassembles while there is simultaneously a decrease in total microtubule polymer mass and an increase in microtubule dynamics [
25]. In some cells, the increase in dynamics is due to an increase in catastrophe frequency and a reduction in the rescue frequency rather than changes in growth and shortening rates [
26,
27]. In our study, we found that the microtubules in MC+1 cells grew and shortened more slowly and for shorter periods of time than those in MP6.1 cells. The dynamicity was significantly decreased in MC+1 cells in comparison to MP6.1 cells. These observations are coherent with the tubulin fraction alterations observed. The relative lack of available polymerizable tubulin dimers could explain the reduced growing and overall dynamicity.
The highly dynamic microtubules in the spindle are required for all stages of mitosis [
2]. During prometaphase, the dynamicity of microtubules is very important in order to probe the cytoplasm and attach to chromosomes at their kinetochores [
28]. Any single chromosome unable to attach to the spindle is enough to prevent a cell from transitioning to anaphase and therefore be blocked at or before metaphase-anaphase transition and undergo apoptosis later on [
29,
30]. In our study, the decreased dynamicity in MC+ cells did not affect the prophase and metaphase progression and only affected the anaphase-telophase transition. We observed a significant increase in the duration of anaphase-telophase which is the cause of a slower mitosis in the MC+ cells. This means that the less dynamic microtubules affected the mitosis without causing blockage or cell death. The distribution of MC+ cells in the cell cycle was different from that of the control cells in that they presented higher percentage of cells in the G2-M phase and lower percentage in the S-phase. By inhibiting TBCC protein through transient transfection of siRNA targeting TBCC, we obtained an increase in the percentage of cells in S-phase and a decrease in the percentage of cells in G2-M, thereby confirming the involvement of TBCC in the cell cycle alteration observed.
Previous publications have suggested that the dynamicity of microtubules depends on microtubule composition and is correlated with post-translational modifications of α-tubulins. Detyrosinated microtubules (Glu microtubules) present enhanced stability against end-mediated depolymerisation however the detyrosination alone is not sufficient to confer this enhanced stability [
31]. Tubulin detyrosination occurs frequently in breast cancer and is linked to tumor aggressivity [
24]. Reduced abundance of α and α-acetylated tubulin is associated with enhanced apoptosis in leukemia cells [
32]. Acetylated α-tubulin is present in microtubules that under depolymerising condition are more stable than the majority of cytoplasmic microtubules [
31,
33]. The existence of a direct effect of acetylation on microtubule stability and dynamics remains controversial [
34]. In our study, we investigated the expression levels of detyrosinated (Glu) α-tubulin, tyrosinated α-tubulin and acetylated α-tubulin. Reproducible results were obtained with the tyrosinated tubulin which was not modified and for the acetylated tubulin that was increased in the MC+ cells with respect to MP6 cells. The results of increased expression level of acetylated α-tubulin in MC+ cells can be explained as an attempt of these cells to protect their microtubules. The microtubules in MC+ cells have diminished dynamicity and their reduced growth rate is not enough to compensate for their continuous shortening events. As a means to prevent excessive depolymerisation, the microtubules of MC+ might have incorporated acetylated α tubulin in order to acquire more stability against depolymerisation. It has been previously reported that high expression of class III beta tubulin by tumor cells is associated with resistance to taxane chemotherapy in non-small cell lung cancer [
35]. Here we can't do any correlation, since the expression profile of the class III beta tubulin in our models is not determined.
The MCF7 cells (human mammary adenocarcinoma) emerge from an invasive ductal carcinoma type of cancer [
36,
37]. The
in vivo invasiveness and metastasis processing of MCF7 cells depend on many factors that influence the cell such as steroid hormones, growth factors, oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes [
38]. In our study, MC+ cells presented a limited tumor growth
in vivo compared to MP6 cells. Since the proliferative activity of MC+ cells
in vitro was not reduced in comparison to control cells and their volume was not altered (data not shown), we hypothesize that this reduced
in vivo growth may be at least partially explained by the potential loss of aggressive and invasive capacities of MC+ cells rather than by decreased proliferation rate [
39]. The study of expression levels of TBCC, α tubulin and β tubulin in the tumors extracted from the mice revealed that the MC+ cells maintained the same alterations
in vivo as those reported
in vitro (data not shown). In the intent to understand the potential involvement of TBCC in the invasiveness phenotype, we have studied by quantitative RT-PCR the levels of expression of the
TBCC gene in thirteen different human breast cancer cell lines for which
in vitro invasiveness properties have been reported [
40]. We found that the four cell lines that expressed
TBCC the highest (MCF7, MDA-MB361, MDA-MB453 and UACC812) were the ones with low
in vitro invasiveness capacity and the other nine cell lines that were highly invasive had low
TBCC expression (Additional file
1). While this observation does not allow us to conclude a direct role of TBCC it suggests a possible involvement of TBCC in tumor aggressivity whether through microtubules or through other unidentified pathways such as interaction with the Arl2 protein. It is important to note that in the cells overexpressing TBCC we noticed that the expression levels of Arl2 and tumor suppressor p53 were slightly increased. ADP ribosylation factor like 2 (Arl2) protein is a GTPase that belongs to ADP ribosylation factor (ARF) family [
41,
42] and plays a role in microtubule dynamics [
21,
42]. Arl2 is known to directly bind to TBCD and can inhibit TBCD from dissociating the α/β tubulin heterodimers [
17]. MCF7 cells overexpressing Arl2 were found to have low i
n vivo growth capacity [
43]. However
in vitro, the behaviour of MC+ cells in terms of cell cycle, microtubule dynamics, response to antimicrotubule agents largely differ from that of cells overexpressing Arl2 [
21]. Therefore one possible hypothesis could be that
in vivo a mechanism involving TBCC and p53 or an interaction between Arl2 and TBCC is involved in the loss of aggressivity of MC+ cells.
Based on the success and efficiency of microtubule-targeted drugs in the treatments of cancer in general and breast cancer in specific, microtubules remain the best cancer target identified to date [
44]. Even though paclitaxel and vinorelbine have different mechanisms of action with respect to microtubule, their cellular effects at low but clinically relevant concentrations are reduced microtubule dynamics inducing mitotic arrest. Paclitaxel, from the taxanes family binds to β-tubulin, causes lateral polymerization and suppresses microtubule dynamics [
45]. The cellular effect of paclitaxel at low concentrations (<10 nM) include suppression of microtubule dynamics without affecting microtubule content and mitotic arrest then apoptosis [
46]. Vinorelbine, from the vinca alkaloids binds with high affinity to the plus end of the microtubule and with low affinity to the sides of the microtubule and leads to depolymerization [
46,
47]. However at low concentrations, vinca alkaloids block mitosis with little or no depolymerisation of spindle microtubules [
48]. Therefore, compounds that depolymerize microtubules can also stabilize microtubule dynamics at relatively low concentrations [
49]. In our study, we have observed an increased sensitivity of the MC+ cells
in vitro toward the mitosis blockage compared to MP6 cells. The low non toxic concentrations of both paclitaxel (10 nM) and vinorelbine (1 nM) induced a stronger G2-M block in MC+ cells than in MP6 cells. We used subtoxic concentrations of treatments as shown by the absence of significant increase in percentage of sub-G0 cells. The results observed were homogenous in the three clones of each cell line. The enhanced sensitivity of MC+ cells to paclitaxel was confirmed
in vivo. We explain the increased sensitivity of the MC+ for the antimicrotubule agents by two main hypotheses. One is the basal lower dynamicity of microtubules in these cells compared to MP6 cells. Second is the high percentage of G2-M cells in MC+ cells which means high percentage of target cells for antimicrotubule agents. These results suggest that TBCC content of breast tumor cells significantly influences their sensitivity to tubulin binding agents both
in vitro and
in vivo. When we tested the response of MC+1 and MP6.1 cells to gemcitabine, a nucleoside analog and S-phase specific antimetabolite, we showed that MC+1 cells were less sensitive to gemcitabine than the MP6.1 cells, significantly at 1 nM. This lower sensitivity to gemcitabine is due to the fact that MC+1 cells present a lower percentage of cells in the S-phase at the basal level. The differential responses to antimicrotubule agents and gemcitabine reveal that our cell models respond to these treatments based on their distribution in the cell cycle. Therefore we suggest that other anticancer treatments that target the cell cycle can have interesting effects on our cell models.
Competing interests
Rouba Hage-Sleiman benefits from financial support from the Lebanese CNRS.
Authors' contributions
RHS and CD conceived and designed the experiments. RHS and CD wrote the manuscript. RHS and SH performed the in vivo studies and analyzed the data. RHS, SH, ELM and JFL performed the in vitro studies. RHS analyzed the in vitro data. CD contributed with reagents/materials/analysis tools. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.