MCF7 are estrogen, progesterone receptors +, HER2-. Perfect model for hormone therapy

MDAMB231 are triple negative. perfect model for chemotherapy

Hi Bindu, 

Despite both cell lines are breast cancer cell lines, MDA-MB-231 is "basal" type and triple negative (ER, PR and HER2 negative) breast cancer cell line and MCF7 is "luminal" type and ER and PR positive. So these differences will affect in drug sensitivity 

Please let me know why MDA-MB-231 cells are more sensitive to any drug treatment when compared to MCF-7 cells?

By any drug it means cytotoxic agent right? Triple-Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC) or Basal-like breast cancer (both of them are very similar and highly correlated, but different) which is what MDA-MB-231 is, are very prone to cytotoxic agent because of their lack of DNA repairing capability (because the mutation of BRCA gene or TP53). You might want to search TNBC therapeutic review for more detail.

Hope that help,

Radif

@ Muhammad Radiftar 

Check this, it might help you finding the right drug you are looking for.

http://www.cancerrxgene.org/translation/CellLine/3154

Dear Mr. Gudagudi,

I was quoting Miss/Mrs. Noolu actually. And to be honest I found the chart to be somewhat confusing, though some of them is quite familiar, like some MEK inhibitor, PARP inhibitor, which are still under clinical trial for treating TNMBC (Triple-negative metastatic breast cancer).

Best Regards,

Radif

Are the genomic, or exomic, sequences available?

Hi Bindu,  I guess you are comparing apple and oranges when looking for any similarity between MCF7 and MDA-MB-231.... yeah they both are Breast cancer cells so is true for the apple and oranges..... they both are fruits and round in shape.... jokes apart....!!!! there are couple of detailed explanations given by people before me for the "differences" between these two cells lines..... but the simplest answer is MCF7 is ER +ve and MDA-MB-231 is ER -ve breast cancer cell line...... and till date almost every therapy directed in breast cancer depend on status of ER in the cancer.... I don't think you can generalize that MB-231 cells are "more sensitive to drugs".... because they will not respond to TAMOXIFEN a potent drug against ER +ve cells.... (TAM being the ER antagonist.....) your MB-231 cells are showing higher sensitivity towards all the drugs which you have used can easily be attributed to unhappy, stressed out cells being finicky to slight changes in their environment.... so rule out this simple issue before reaching any conclusion.... hope these suggestions help you positively....

Dear Mr. Rajabi,

While it is true that TNBC is ER-, PR-, HER2- (thus giving the impression of lacking therapeutic options), but evidence shows that they are more prone to cytotoxic agent, when treated with cytotoxic agent they have a higher pCR (pathological Complete Response) compared to luminal or HER2+. And when she means any drug, it actually means cytotoxic drug, because there are many cytotoxic agent available in the market compared to HER2 antibodies or hormonal therapy drug.

Ref:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17329194

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19596646

Best regards,

Radif

Wow... Mr. Radif...... you could read between the lines "when she said drug she meant cytotoxic drugs."  FYI.. I read it as she meant drugs as opiate drug and somebody might have read it hallucinating drugs..... cells dying because of toxicity of drugs is same as if you add bleach in the culture media... cells will dye... and that will be totally off target and killing phenomenon.... !!!!  please do not help her for NOT posting her query in coherent and comprehensible manner.... and certainly NEVER suggest that readers should fill in the blanks and then answer the query.....!!!!!

Dear Mr. Rajabi,

Well, I do so, because she upvote my previous answer. Perhaps you would like to check my previous answer and the reference I shared previously.

Update:

Also, I wouldn't dare to clarify it if she's not upvoting my previous answer.

Mr. Radifar and Rajabi,

Thanks for your answers, Actually i tested the effect of a natural compound for its cytotoxic effect in MCF7 and MDA-MB-231 cell lines, i used 4 to 5 approaches to test its activity and everytime observed that MDA were more sensitive than MCF-7 with less IC50 values for MDA.so i was keen to know the reason behind that. In literature also similar observations were seen.

The 2 reference I have mentioned above are the source of my first answer, hope that can give some clue to your observation.

For more information about the classification of cell lines, here is the DOI:

10.1016/j.ccr.2006.10.008

10.1186/bcr2889

10.1186/bcr577

Hi Bindu, I am surprised you are wasting your time on wrong issue..... why don't you think you have a promising lead or partial answer to your query.....???? the natural compound you have used is more effective against ER-negative breast cancer..... OR may be you were looking for a "silver bullet" to cure all sort of breast cancer.....  My suggestion, take this cue and run with it..... focusing more with ER -ve breast cancer cell lines..... do an array and see what genes are lighting up with your treatment.....!!!! and bingo..... you have a nice finding about your natural compound effectiveness in more dreadful ER -ve breast cancers.....!!!! FYI once a scientist did an experiment by pulling out one leg at a time of a cockroach and asked it to jump.... after pulling out all the legs of the poor cockroach he asked it to jump at it could not jump...... conclusion...... if you remove all the legs of a cockroach it can NOT HEAR....!!!!!

MCF7 are estrogen, progesterone receptors +, HER2-. Perfect model for hormone therapy

MDAMB231 are triple negative. perfect model for chemotherapy

The reason you see lower IC50 values for MCF7s could be due to the mechanism of cell death being activated. MCF7s are lack caspase 3, effector protein in the apoptotic pathway. Although there might be compensatory functions by caspase 7, it might explain the phenotype you are observing.

Do you know if this cell line express androgen receptor?

Did, any of you, have a paper that report the differences between this two?

Luis Pedro Monteiro, you don't need paper, just visit the webpage of ATCC (animal tissue and cell culture), USA. They are the world wide supplier and keeper of almost every available commercial cell lines with gory details of every cell line.... and they clearly mention that MCF7 is ER +ve cells and MB-231 are ER -ve cells "by origin"....!!!! Unless you want to discover the wheels again, I will suggest the one you already have..... so

MDA is hard to treat and MCF-7 is more easier.

hi Bindu,

if you didn't do it, do all your exp in 3D culture, i mean mammosphere assay to get your drug validation more authentic. 2D culture and drug efficacy study is a red flag in cancer research nowadays.

MDA-MB-231 is triple negative breast cancer cell lines and they are about 15% to 20% of all breast cancer cases and hard to treat them. Need more research for discovery of new drugs or compounds. MCF-7 is estrogen receptor positive breast cancer cell lines and effective treatments drugs are available. e.g. Tamoxifen and etc. Morphologically, they are the same because both of them are epithelial cells. Genetically, they are different as mentioned. They are easy to culture in DMEM high glucose with 10% FBS.

Sensitivity of these 2 cell lines depends on the drug you are using. MDA-MB-231 cells are metastatic..so, in vitro cell migration/invasion assays are a very good indicator of the activity of these cells. MCF7 cells are not metastatic and can serve as a negative control in the in vitro cell migration/invasion assays. Hope this helps-All the Best Bindu!

I have a quick question, if we are culturing both cell lines MCF-7 and MD231 at same time and if labelling goes wrong how can we identify which one is MCF7 and which oNe is MD231 now? Suggestion please

Transfer the culture from respective flask to medium containing no phenol red and charcoal stripped FBS. It will get rid of all estrogen activity and now in one flask you will see no or very negligible growth and that has to be MCF7 as it needs estrogen for growth.

Original MCF7 cells do not express caspase 3. A western blot for this caspase can help you distinguish between MCF7 and MDA231 cells. Hope this helps!

Hi Shumaila Zaib ,

The easy way to differetiate between MDA231 and MCF7 cells is by looking at the Estrogen Receptor expression (ESR1). MCF7 is a Hormone receptor (ER, PR) postive cell-line while MDA231 is a triple negative cell line (lacks ER, PR). This is their key molecular difference and how Breast cancer pateints are grouped into diff erent groups (Hormone+, Her2+, Triple Negative) There are lot of good antibodies avaliable for ESR1. I would try a western blot for Estrogen receptor. Hope this helps.

Prasanna Ekambaram Thank you

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