Modulation of notch signaling components in presence of epigenetic modulators in breast cancer

Abstract

Notch signaling is one of the pleotropic signaling pathway that plays key role in development as it promotes differentiation and tissue morphogenesis. In recent years it has been observed that this pathway along with many other developmental pathways is seen to be deregulated in different cancers. The role that is played by this pathway is highly context dependent in cancers that is in some cases it act as a tumor suppressor while as oncogenic in others. It is proved with its oncogenic role in all forms of breast cancer. We tried to assess the effects on this pathway in MDA MB-231 breast cancer cells after treatment with epigenetic modulators S-Adenosyl Methionine (SAM) and S-Adenosyl Homocysteine (SAH) in a time dependent manner for 0-48 hr. The expression of important notch receptor Notch-1 and downstream effector Hes-1 were shown to be down regulated after SAM treatment but the SAH treatment upregulated them. This was accompanied by apoptotic induction in SAM treated cells in a more aggravated manner as compared to the SAH treated cells. From all these results we tentatively conclude that SAM treatment of invasive breast cancer cell line induces cell death in a notch dependent manner.