Upregulation of Human Mammaglobin Reduces Migration and Invasion of Breast Cancer Cells

Abstract

Little is known about the biological role of human mammaglobin (hMAM) that is considered as a promising marker for breast cancer. Here, we investigated hMAM's role related to migration and invasion of human breast cancer cells (hBCC). Compared to normal cells, hBCC have high MAM mRNA expression levels. Of the hBCC tested, MAM mRNA expression levels were higher in noninvasive than in invasive cells. Overexpression of hMAM in breast cancer cells decreased migration and invasion, whereas knockdown of hMAM increased both. Taken together, these results suggest that metastasis of hBCC could be controlled by hMAM expression levels.

Keywords: :

• Breast cancer
• Gene expression
• Invasion and metastasis

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work was supported by an NRF grant funded by the Korea government (2005-0049415 and 2010-0024258) and by biomedical research institute fund (GNUHBRIF-2013-0004) from the Gyeongsang National University Hospital (to Eun-Ha Koh).

Abbreviations: MAM, mammaglobin