List Of Breast Cancer Cell Lines

Previous comments have been made on the need to be discriminating when reading articles on breast cancer studies performed in vitro(in petri dishes or test tubes) or in vivo (in rats or mice usually) utilizing breast cancer cell lines. One thread recently posted on this site had to do with whether flaxseed was good or bad for her2+ breast cancer and listed a study performed by someone in Nutritional science on a breast cancer cell line implanted in mice that turned out to be both estrogen negative AND her2 negative!


I found a nice list of breast cancer cell lines which specify whether or not they are her2+. It still does not tell which are ER+, but it will help one spot right away whether the study was done on her2+ or her2- breast cancer cells and thus help those of you with her2 positive breast cancer have an idea whether the study has any likelihood of providing information useful to your cases:

The naturally HER-2/neu-overexpressing cell lines: BT-474, SK-BR3, MDA-MB-361, and MDA-MB-453
the HER-2/neu-non-overexpressing cell lines: BT-20, MDA-MB-435, MCF-7, MDA-MB-231, ZR-75–1, and T-47D
Cell lines MCF-7/HER-2, MDA-MB-231/HER-2, ZR-75–1/HER-2 and T-47D/HER-2 were previously created by transfection with a retroviral expression vector containing a full-length human HER-2/neu complementary DNA (cDNA), resulting in stable HER-2/neu overexpression

The last group of cell lists which are listed have "her2" appended to their names-- meaning they were naturally her2negative, but they did a little genetic engineering and transfected them with her2.
It is absolutely unclear whether such transformed cell lines really have much to do with tumors that developed naturally and demonstrate her2neu amplification.

So when looking to see if some drug or vitamin or supplement has an effect on YOUR TYPE OF BREAST CANCER be sure the cell lines listed are
BT-474, SK-BR3, MDA-MB-361, or MDA-MB-453 (or MCF-7/HER-2, MDA-MB-231/HER-2, ZR-75–1/HER-2 and T-47D/HER-2 --but retain your skepticism if these latter cell lines were used)

NEEDLESS to say, what happens in the test tube, petri dish or in a rat fatpad injected with cells from another species may not have much to do with what happens in real life in humans

But hopefully this will help in interpreting which of these studies MIGHT
have something to offer and which have been performed in a set of cells so different than yours that the results are unlikely to be applicable to you


Hope this helps!
Lani