Abstract 604: Styrene compounds induce apoptosis in triple negative breast cancer cell lines.

Abstract

Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a rare basal-like subtype of breast cancer that is highly aggressive due to its invasiveness and metastatic properties. TNBC is characterized by the loss or low expression of estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, and HER2 proteins which have been targeted and established as somewhat effective therapy regiments in other breast cancer subtypes including luminal breast cancer. Since triple negative tumors are missing these established drug targets, there has been little advancement in the establishment of drug therapies to specifically target this breast cancer subtype and therefore the need for novel therapeutics in treating TNBC still remains. Previous reports have suggested that PARP inhibitors show promise in potentiating the effectiveness of other known chemotherapeutics. Styrene compounds are volatile organic compounds that have a similar structural composition to some known PARP inhibitors. Our group has developed styrene compounds composed of a 3-nitro group on the A ring and varying aryl groups in the B ring of the styrene, and then tested their biological effects on luminal and TNBC cell lines. In this study, four different styrene compounds were used to treat the luminal breast cancer cell line HCC70 and the triple negative breast cancer cell line HCC1806. The breast cancer cells were exposed to a 10, 100, and 1000 μM titration over a 24hr time period. The apoptotic effect on these cell lines were analyzed and measured via qualitative and quantitative methods. We show here that light microscopy revealed a classic apoptotic dose-response to all of the styrene compounds in the cell lines. We also used the cell viability and MTT assays to reveal a dose-response decrease in cell viability and increase in cell death to the titration of the styrene compounds. This preliminary data show that these compounds have the ability to induce apoptosis in luminal and triple negative breast cancer cell lines. Our preliminary results lead us to believe that these styrenes could represent a new chemotherapeutic treatment for Triple Negative Breast Cancer and potentially other breast cancer subtypes.

Citation Format: Checo J. Rorie, Shaina L. Richardson, Agape C. Lucas, Phillip A. Thomas, Kashenya M. Gurley, Marion A. Franks. Styrene compounds induce apoptosis in triple negative breast cancer cell lines. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 104th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2013 Apr 6-10; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2013;73(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 604. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2013-604