The effect of secreted factors from breast tumour cells on osteogenic potential of mesenchymal cells

• Main Author: Toh, Gui Qin
• Other Authors: Teoh Swee Hin
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2015
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/64747
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Cancer is a disease caused by uncontrolled division of cells. These cells can invade nearby tissues and spread to the other parts of the body through the blood and lymph systems. As the breast cells metastasize to the bone, there are many interactions of the breast tumour cells with the bone. Hence, this study investigates into the effects of the secreted factors of the breast cancer cells on the osteogenic potential of the mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) in bone microenvironment. The conditioned medium of the breast cancer cell line MDA-MB-231 was collected and further used for incubating the MSCs in bone medium for 14 days. Assays such as BSA (Bovine Serum Albumin), PG (Picogreen), ALP (Alkaline Phosphatase) and calcium were done to study the proliferation and osteogenic potential of the stem cells. The results showed that the conditioned medium factors of the breast tumour cells, MDA-MB-231, did not provide any significant difference to the osteogenic differentiation of to the MSCs in bone medium conditions. This indicates that the conditioned medium might not be the only factor in the osteolytic/osteoblastic events at the bone metastatic site. Further studies involving direct co-culture would be required to investigate the metastatic events and the effects the cancer cells have on the stem cells in their native environment.