In breast, Estrogen is synthesized from androgens by aromatase enzyme. In breast cancer cell culture, where the adrenal androgenic precursors are not present, what could be the source of estrogen? is the cell culture a good representative model for studying the effects of estrogen and anti estrognes in breast cancer ?
Thanks
Estrogen/estradiol may or may not be in the serum you supplement your culture media with: FBS/CS/HS/etc. are absurdly dirty mixtures with rather random components depending upon the exact cow/horse/etc. the serum was collected from. Similarly, phenol red (the pH indicator in many commercial media formulations) is a weak estrogen receptor agonist.
I concur with William. When we were doing estrogen studies on breast cells, we would use charcoal dextran treated (CDT) serum and DMEM without phenol to starve cells of estrogen signaling. The CDT treatment removes small molecules and growth factors from the serum. You can find some at VWR, Cat #16777-228
https://us.vwr.com/store/product/21275291/charcoal-dextran-fbs-500ml-def
https://books.google.com.eg/books?id=sX3HsB_sDl0C&pg=PA121&lpg=PA121&dq=what+is+the+source+of+estrogen+in+breast+cancer+culture&source=bl&ots=PtQUyle1mQ&sig=KSI8Z6UKHU6sucOwlDO4vSmAff4&hl=ar&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjP96frxujTAhWCPRoKHYZ7BzUQ6AEIPjAJ#v=onepage&q=what%20is%20the%20source%20of%20estrogen%20in%20breast%20cancer%20culture&f=false
Thanks Wiliam and Seron for your answers, Thanks Aya for this review. But, Does aromatase enzyme have any role in estrogen synthesis in breast cancer cell culture? is the cell culture a good model to test the effect of aromatase inhibitors ?
hi, Aromatase is the key enzyme in estrogen production pathway...it aromatizes androgens into estrogens
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