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Fig. 3 | Breast Cancer Research

Fig. 3

From: Local estrogen axis in the human bone microenvironment regulates estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer cells

Fig. 3

Conditioned media from cultured human bone tissue fragments preferentially stimulate estrogen receptor-positive (ER+) breast cancer cell proliferation. a Experimental design in which breast cancer cells were seeded into tissue culture wells containing bone tissue-conditioned supernatants vs. control medium (DMEM-10%FBS). b Bioluminescence imaging (BLI) on day 4 of culture showing signal for ER+ MCF-7, and ER- SK-BR-3 and MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells cultured in supernatants generated with total hip replacement (THR) specimen 133 vs. control medium. c Ratio of averaged triplicate BLI signal on day 4 of culture in supernatant vs. control medium for each cell line shown in (b), revealing the highest ratio for ER+ MCF-7 (40.1x), and lower ratios for ER- SKBR-3 (2.8x) and MDA-MB-231 (1.4x) cells. d Averaged triplicate BLI signal detected for each cell line following culture in supernatant vs. control medium shown in (b). BLI signal was significantly greater during culture with bone tissue supernatants vs. control medium for ER-positive MCF-7 (***p = 0.0000028) and ER-/human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (Her2)-positive SK-BR-3 (**p = 0.0046), but not ER- MDA-MB-231 cells, as determined by t test (n = 3, error bars represent standard deviation). e Averaged triplicate BLI signal generated by MCF-7, SK-BR-3, and MDA-MB-231 cells cultured in control vs. conditioned media generated from a series of eight THR surgical specimens. Analysis of variance demonstrated that BLI signal for cells cultured in conditioned vs. control media was dramatically increased for MCF-7 cells (p = 0.0004), moderately increased for SK-BR-3 cells (p = 0.0142), but was not changed for MDA-MB-231 cells (p = 0.8821). These results confirm that conditioned media generated from multiple patient specimens preferentially promote the proliferation of ER+ breast cancer cells

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