Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Effect of CBX4/miR-137/Notch1 signaling axis on the proliferation and migration of breast cancer cells

Le Ma¹, Lihua Zheng², Dongmei Zhang², Zhimin Fan¹

¹Department of Breast Surgery, The First Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun 130024, Jilin Province; ²National Engineering Laboratory for Druggable Gene and Protein Screening, Northeast Normal University, Changchun, Jilin Province 130024, China.

For correspondence:- Zhimin Fan Email: eqtv73@163.com

Accepted: 21 February 2021 Published: 31 March 2021

Citation: Ma L, Zheng L, Zhang D, Fan Z. Effect of CBX4/miR-137/Notch1 signaling axis on the proliferation and migration of breast cancer cells. Trop J Pharm Res 2021; 20(3):491-496 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v20i3.7

© 2021 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To study the effect of CBX4/miR-137/Notch1 signaling axis on the migration and proliferative capacity of breast cancer.

Methods: Breast cancer MCF7 cell lines were cultured in vitro and transfected with CBX4-overexpressed plasmid and interfering plasmid, which served as CBX4 over-expressing group and CBX4 interfering group, respectively. A control group (blank plasmid transfection) was set up. The MCF7 cells were transfected with miR-137 over-expressed plasmid, miR-137 interfering plasmid and Notch1 interfering plasmid, which served as miR-137 over-expressing, miR-137 interference and Notch1 interference groups, respectively. Cell proliferation and migration capacity were determined with methylthiazolyldiphenyl-tetrazolium (MTT) method and Transwell migration assay, respectively, while reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and immunoblotting were used to assay related gene expressions.

Results: Cell migration in CBX4 over-expressing group was significantly raised (p < 0.05). The expression of miR-137 in CBX4 over-expressing group was markedly decreased (p < 0.05). Compared with the control group, mRNA and protein expressions of Notch1 (NICD), Hey2 and Jag1 in miR-137 over-expressing cells were increased in the miR-137 interfering group (p < 0.05).

Conclusion: CBX4 level is increased in mammary cancer cells. Moreover, CBX4 enhances cell proliferation and migration through induction of Notch1 signaling route by inhibiting miR-137 expression. These findings provide a new strategy for clinical therapy of mammary cancer.

Keywords: CBX4/miR-137/Notch1 signaling axis, Breast cancer, Proliferation, Migration