Figure 4

IL-17 promotes invasion of Matrigel. (a) IL-17 stimulates breast cancer cell invasion and is suppressed by selective matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) antagonists as indicated. Breast tumour cell lines were incubated in serum-free conditions in the absence or presence of IL-17 (200 ng/ml) ± MMP antagonists on the upper chamber of a Matrigel-coated transwell for 22 hours at 37°C. The Matrigel layer was removed and the cells on the transwell were stained prior to mounting, imaging and enumeration. The number of cells migrated onto the transwell per field (magnification ×100) were counted, three representative fields for each condition were enumerated, and each condition was repeated at least three times in separate experiments. Statistical significance is indicated where appropriate. ns, not significant. (b) Comparison of the proinvasive effect of IL-17 (200 ng/ml, white bar) versus TNFα (40 ng/ml, grey bar) versus untreated cells (black bar) on a panel of four breast cancer cell lines. Invasion assays were conducted as described above. Data represents the mean ± standard deviation of triplicate determinations and is representative of five independent experiments. Statistical significance is indicated.