Involvement of β-catenin in Androgen-induced Mesenchymal Transition of Breast MDA-MB-453 Cancer Cells

ABSTRACT

Purpose The cellular and molecular dynamics of DHT-induced EMT in MDA-MB-453 cells were investigated.

Methods:PCR arrays were used to examine the expression of EMT-regulatory genes. Immunoblotting was used to detect protein levels and confirm protein-protein interaction following immunoprecipitation. Immunofluorescence was used to observe rearrangement of the actin cytoskeleton and cell morphology. Cell migration was assessed by transwell assay

Results: Change of cell morphology was concomitant with increased cell migration after treating cells with DHT. Exposure of cells to DHT for one hour was sufficient to induce changes in cell morphology and actin cytoskeleton after 72 hours indicating altered gene expression. A long-term lasting nuclear translocation of AR was observed after a short exposure of cells to DHT. Investigating the expression of 84 EMT-related genes revealed down-expression of β-catenin, N-cadherin, and TCF-4 and increased expression of Slug, all of which were confirmed at the protein level. Yet, not only early interaction of AR and β-catenin was observed following AR activation, inhibition of β-catenin blocked DHT-induced mesenchymal transition and migration. Wnt signaling was found to be partially important in DHT-induced morphological alteration. The mesenchymal transition of cells could be induced by treating cells with an inhibitor of glycogen synthase kinase-3β, an enzyme that inhibits β-catenin; this morphological transition could be reversed by antagonizing AR suggesting that AR functions downstream of β-catenin.

Conclusions: These results suggest that MDA-MB-453 cells undergo partial EMT induced by DHT, β-catenin is critical for this phenotypic change, and AR probably reciprocally mediates the mesenchymal transition of these cells upon activation of GSK-3 β.

KEYWORDS:

• Androgen receptor
• β-catenin
• gsk-3 β
• mda-MB-453 cells
• partial EMT

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the scientific staff of the Cell Therapy Center at the University of Jordan for facilitating the use of their facility. The authors would also like to thank Professor Lubna Tahtamouni for her technical and scientific support.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by generous grants from the Deanship of Scientific Research, The University of Jordan (1554/2017/19) and from Scientific Research and Innovation Fund, Ministry of Higher Education and Research (MPH/2/7/2014).