Evaluation of the breast epithelial cell line EpH4-Ev as a non-tumorigenic control to the 4T1 tumorigenic breast cancer cell line

• In Event: Poster Presentation and Judging for: Biomedical; Cell & Molecular Biology; Chemistry & Biochemistry; Marine Science; Systematics & Evolutionary Biology.
  In Poster Session: Cell & Molecular Biology Poster session

Abstract

Previous studies in our laboratory have utilized the widely used 4T1 murine breast cancer cell line to investigate cytotoxic and apoptotic effects of anti-inflammatory plant extracts and specific molecules isolated from these extracts. Although we have found numerous potential chemotherapeutic agents from plant extracts, these studies suffer from a lack of specificity. The most effective chemotherapeutic agents would exhibit a higher degree of cytotoxicity or induce apoptosis in cancer cells but not their non-tumorigenic counterparts. In this study, we have used the non-tumorigenic EpH4-Ev cell line. EpH4-Ev cells are an immortalized, but non-tumorigenic murine breast epithelial cell line we tested for suitability as our “normal” control. We compared cytotoxic and apoptotic effects of various plant extracts on EpH4-Ev and 4T1 cells to determine if some plant extracts preferentially killed 4T1 cancer cells as opposed to a EpH4-Ev cell line. We found that some plant extracts were more cytotoxic to 4T1 cells than to EpH4-Ev cells, and some exhibited no difference. Additionally, we found through western blot analysis, that ginger extracts caused 4T1 cells, but not EpH4-Ev cells to activate Caspase-3 suggesting apoptosis was induced. Our conclusion is that the EpH4-Ev cell line is a valuable control cell line for comparison to 4T1 cells. In the future, we will be able to focus our research on molecular constituents of plants which are more cytotoxic to 4T1 tumor cells than the non-tumorigenic EpH4-Ev cell line.

Authors

• Alana Quackenbush, Wayland Baptist Universtiy

• Makayla Nicholson, Wayland Baptist University

• Gary O. Gray, Waylon Baptist University

• Adam Reinhart, Wayland Baptist University