African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 4 (12), pp. 1415-1420, December 2005          
ISSN 1684–5315 © 2005 Academic Journals

Full Length Research Paper

Association between steroid hormone receptors and PSA gene expression in breast cancer cell lines

Nosratollah Zarghami¹*, Habib Onsori², Behrangh Alani¹

¹Department of Molecular biochemistry and RIA, Drug Applied Research center, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran.

²Department of Biology, Islamic Azad University, Marand, Iran.

*Corresponding Author. E-mail: nzarghami@hotmail.com; Tel: 0411-3363234 Ext 241. Fax: 3363231.

Abbreviations: PSA, Prostate specific antigen; ER, estrogen receptor; PR, progesterone receptors; AR, androgen receptor; and HRE, hormone response element.

Accepted 10 October, 2005

The prostate specific antigen (PSA) gene is a member of the human kallikrein gene family and is known that to be tightly regulated by androgens in the male prostate. The presence of PSA is strongly associated with presence of steroid hormone receptors. The aim of this research was to show differential expression and association between steroid hormone receptors and PSA gene expression in breast cancer cell lines. The cell lines investigated were steroid receptor-negative breast carcinoma cell lines BT-20 and HBT-100 and the steroid hormone receptor-positive breast carcinoma cell lines BT-474, ZR-75-1, MDA-MB-453 and MFM-233. Others include BG-1 (ovarian), MFE-296 (endometrium), HBT-161 (ovarian), HBT-173 (ovarian), A-427 (lung), SK-MES-1 (lung), NCI-H460 (lung), MIA PaCa (pancreas), and Colo320 (Colon) cell lines. All cell lines were cultured as confluent and then harvested. Stimulation test was carried out using steroid compound. The concentration of estrogen receptor (ER) and progesterone receptor (PR) in all tumor cell lines were measured with the abbot enzyme immunoassay kit. Among cell lines tested, only steroid receptor positive cells were able to produce PSA at the protein and the mRNA level in response to stimulatory effects of steroid hormones. Our data suggest that the expression of the PSA gene in different cancer cell lines may depends on the presence of steroid hormone receptors.

Key words: PSA, steroid hormone receptor, prostate cancer, breast cancer.