Heme oxygenase-1 decreases the invasive phenotype in breast cancer.

CURINO, AC; FERRONATO, MJ; ALONSO, E ; FERMENTO, ME ; OBIOL, DJ; FACCHINETTI, MM ; GANDINI, NA

Congreso; The Third South Amercian Symposium in Signal Transduction and Molecular Medicine; 2015

Cell invasion involves changes in cell-cell and cell-extracellular matrix interactions. E-cadherin (E-cadh) and β-catenin (β-cat) participate as anchor proteins of epithelial cell-cell interactions and have been shown to be deregulated in breast cancer (BC). Previous results from our laboratory demonstrated a role of heme oxygenase 1 (HO-1) in the progression of BC, although the mechanism of action has not yet been addressed. Therefore, the aim of this work was to assess if HO-1 has a role in breast cancer metastasis and for this purpose we have begun studying HO-1 effects on cell migration and invasion and on E-cadh and β-cat levels. The results obtained in human BC biopsies demonstrate that there is a positive correlation between the expression of HO-1 and E-cadh (p = 0.0144; Spearman test), as detected by immunohistochemistry (IHC). In the murine LM3 BC cells, pharmacological activation of HO-1 with hemin increased expression of E-cadh and β-cat (p