Involvement of Reactive Oxygen Species in Breast Cancer Cells Development, Maintenance and Death

摘要

Oxygen Free Radicals (OFR) have different effects on cellular processes. They were implicated in cell damage, apoptosis, and carcinogenesis. The hypothesis of this proposal is that the effect of OFR is concentration dependent. At high concentration OFR cause damage, at low concentration they cause apoptosis, and at even lower concentration they fail to activate the apoptosis signal, leading to the development of cancer. To test this hypothesis we proposed to measure the level of OFR in normal and cancer breast cell lines and primary human breast tissue, and to correlate the OFR concentration with apoptosis and carcinogenesis. We have shown, in cell-line, that there is a correlation between the growth curve, number of apoptotic cells, and number of dead cells and the concentration of H202 added to the culture. We also showed correlation between Cytochrome P-450 activity and the OFR levels, connecting the regulation of OFR to the Cytochrome P-45O.