Ezrin Silencing By Small Hairpin Rna Reverses Metastatic Behaviors Of Human Breast Cancer Cells.

Ezrin silencing by small hairpin RNA reverses metastatic behaviors of human breast cancer cells.

Every 13 minutes a woman dies of breast cancer. Breast cancer is the second most common type of cancer for women today. In this study breast cancer cells, which were obtained from American Type Culture Collection, were used to. Although there has been progression in treatment for breast cancer, it is still a burden for health care providers to obtain an accurate diagnosis between tumor metastasis 1 and 2.

The purpose of this study was to use a type of RNA interference (RNAi) to describe the role of ezrin in the regulation of metastasis in various cancers such as breast cancer cells. There were four types of human breast cancer cell lines that were obtained; MCF-7, MDA-MB-453, MDA-MB-435s and MDA-MB-231. These breast cancer cell lines were then tested, using Western blot analysis, for the expression of ezrin and the results were MDA-MB-231 contained the highest expression of ezrin and MCF-7 was the lowest in the expression of ezrin. The cell line selected for this study was MDA-MB-231.

The type of RNA interference that was used was ezrin small hairpin RNAs (ezrin shRNAs). Ezrin shRNAs is a silencing gene that was used to silence the protein ezrin from its functions, which in this case it would be metastasis. The reason why scientists were interested in the protein ezrin is because it is regarded as a metastatic determinant for tumor metastasis. Ezrin is part of the ERM proteins family, (Ezrin, Radixin, and Moesin). These types of proteins are actin-binding which provides regulated linkage of actin filaments to the plasma membrane. This linkage makes cell adhesion, cell interactions, and other forms of communication possible. The protein used for this study, ezrin, is known to orchestrate the adherence junctions of cell-cell communications, cell motility, and the progression of metastasis in general.

There have been studies performed with the protein ezrin with other different cancer cell lines that has demonstrated the same potential function for metastasis to occur. It is not a fact that ezrin specifically carries out these functions, but conclusions are drawn based on the results of past studies and its protein group in which it pertains to.

Another protein that is involved in this intracellular communication is E-cadherin. E-cadherin also functions on cell-cell communications and is only expressed in epithelial tissues. Research has suggested that ezrin is essential in localizing the transmembrane protein, E-cadherin to the plasma membrane. It also plays a role in cell adhesion and it said to have a correlation between the loss of E-cadherin and distribution of metastasis. This correlation is somehow inversed to the function of ezrin shRNAs upon ezrin protein. It is inversed because when ezrin protein is over expressed it seems to contribute to metastasis whereas when ezrin protein is exposed to a silencing gene (ezrin shRNAs)