Sulforaphane Suppresses MCF-7 Breast Cancer Cells Growth via miR-19/PTEN Axis to Antagonize the Effect of Butyl Benzyl Phthalate

Abstract

Sulforaphane (SFN), a major isothiocyanate found in cruciferous vegetables, reportedly exerts extensive antitumor effects. Butyl benzyl phthalate (BBP), a widely used plasticizer, plays a crucial role in the promotion of breast cancer. In the present study, we demonstrated that SFN inhibited proliferation, induced apoptosis, and suppressed the stemness of MCF-7 cells, whereas BBP exerted the opposite effects; microRNA-19 (miR-19) plays an important role in BBP-induced cell growth and dysregulation mediated via PTEN and p21. The growth-promoting effect of BBP could be mitigated by SFN, accompanied by a reversal of altered expression of miR-19a, miR-19b, PTEN, and p21. SFN also suppressed BBP-induced binding of upregulated miR-19 with PTEN, as determined using a dual-luciferase reporter assay. Collectively, these results demonstrated, for the first time, that SFN regulates the miR-19/PTEN axis to exert protective effects against BBP-mediated breast cancer promotion, suggesting a new potential role for SFN (or SFN-rich foods) in phthalate antagonism.

Author Contributions

WSC and XML performed experiments and wrote the manuscript. CYZ wrote and edited the manuscript. JSW designed and performed the experiments, and wrote and edited the manuscript.

Conflicts of Interest

All authors declare no potential conflicts of interest relevant to this article.

Ethics Statement

This study did not involve humans or animals, and the cell lines used were purchased from the Chinese Academy of Typical Culture Collection Cell Bank, which conforms to ethical requirements.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 81602879), the Science and Technology Development Foundation of Nanjing Medical University (2015NJMUZD021), and the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Program for College Students in Jiangsu Province (No. 201410312052X). The funders had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or manuscript preparation.