I have cultured several Her2-positive breast cancer cell lines. All of them except HCC1954 form adherent patches, and none of them is invasive. These cell lines don't seem to represent human patients and MMTV-Neu mice.
This paper didn't really discuss Her+ cells. The author also realized the problem I am talking here: "however, cells representing the HER2 subtype, including SKBR3 and MDA-MB-453 cells, have poor tumourigenic potential".
Most of the Her2+ lines I have worked with are of the Luminal kind (ER+ and/or PR+). These usually migrate as cohesive sheets so I have found in my experience the traditional transwell matrigelinvasion/migration assays not useful for these. You could however try performing a scratch assay and look at wound healing and this will show you very cleraly how these move as sheets as well.
Vidya,
Very good suggestion. I will keep it in mind. However, for my current experiment, I plan to look at invadopodia using a Her2+ cell line. The basal A type of cell lines may work better. Unfortunately, I haven't found any good line yet.
Guangwei,
Have you tried using HCC 1954 and culturing them at a lower density on collagen (you could maybe pour collagen out in a 100mm dish and make little wells and seed cells there and then look at their ability to now invade trought this well into the surrounding collagen. This may lead to invadopodia formation. I have attempted this with MDA cells a long time back but did not pursue this further. I do recall seeing podia like structures.... Good luck.
Vidya,
You know what is the problem! We failed to see invadopia formed by HCC1954 plated on gelatin. Collagen may work better for this cell line. We are modifying our gelatin protocol. I hope it can improve the result. If not, I will try gelatin or Matrigel.
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