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

[RhondaH]

for all you ladies and gentleman who are just learning all this garbldy gook about "breast cancer" and want to learn more. Take care

Rhonda

[Mary Anne in TX]

Thanks Rhonda for bumping this one! And Lani, thanks again for keeping our minds and eyes open to one more thing that impacts our battle. Wish we didn't have to be good researchers for our health, but the price we pay if we put it in the hands of others could be too high. Rhonda, did you say you wish they would track those of us staying on herceptin? I really wish they would too. I think that if some tracking might just give some really helpful clues of what and how long. It seems like forever and also only yesterday that I started this challenge. 2 years ago on Dec. 27, I got that call that I had breast cancer. I remember that I had an event to go to the next day and didn't tell anyone, but was a real fruit basket case. How afraid I was those first few months. My fear ruled my life for months. Maybe that whole first year. But as I reflected lately on the holidays and 2 years ago, I know that fear just takes over now and then. I have my panic attacks for a bit and then get on with keeping life # 1 instead of fear. All this just to say that I am so grateful that Rhonda keeps telling me to eat right and that Lani keeps making my lazy brain understand things, and that all the rest keep my education progressing inspite of myself!
You guys are the bestest! Thank you for pressing me to keep growing and therefore to live in life rather than fear! God has truly blessed me with the smartest, most courageous friends I could have wished for. How many lives have Joe and Christine impacted (saved) because they said yes to this "assignment"! Thank you. And Merry Christmas warriors! ma

Lani: I'm writing a grant where i need a panel of breast cancer cells with various combinations of ER, HER2, and PR status. It looks like I could use your help. I'm a little confused about the cell lines that you mentioned and their expression of ER, HER2, and PR. According to: Subik K, Lee JF, Baxter L, Strzepek T, Costello D, Crowley P, Xing L, Hung MC, Bonfiglio T, Hicks DG, Tang P. The Expression Patterns of ER, PR, HER2, CK5/6, EGFR, Ki-67 and AR by Immunohistochemical Analysis in Breast Cancer Cell Lines. Breast Cancer (Auckl). 2010 May 20;4:35-41 and Yezhelyev MV, Al-Hajj A, Morris C, Marcus AI, Liu T, Lewis M, Cohen C, Zrazhevskiy P, Simons JW, Rogatko A, Nie S, Gao X, O’Regan RM. In situ molecular profiling of breast cancer biomarkers with multicolor quantum dots. Adv. Mater. 2007, 19, 3146–3151; MCF-7 is positive or negative for HER2, MDA-MB-453 is negative for HER2, MDA-MB-231 is negative for HER2. There are additional discrepancies. The Subik paper is open access on the web and should give people more info regarding ER status. If you or others can help me, my e-mail is eversdl@comcast.net. Thanks!

[Lani]

It seems cell lines used in research are supposed to be tested frequently to be certain they really still are what they are supposed to be ie, if conditions are not kept perfectly or contamination occurs or some other evolutionary force causes changes in the cells or selection of a subclone (not supposed to happen but...??) the ER, PR and her2 status can change

I even read of a cell line used for years as a breast cancer cell line which turned out to be a melanoma cell line.

As far as my reading has determined MCF-7 remains a her2 cell line unless purposely transfected with her2, in which case the /her-2 will be added to its name. 231 was always her2- (it was 361 I listed) I will check 453 again, but as I remember it remains her2+ unless it has been treated continuously with an antiher2 agent to the point that it has become her2-).

The person to check this all out with would probably be Joe Gray, who moved from Lawrence Livermore/UC Berkeley to the University of Oregon @ Eugene recently to head up a high technology enterprise screening various drugs against various bc cell lines. He has the list of/ possesion of the most breast cancer cell lines I have heard of. He is also one of the chief investigators of the I-Spy trial.

Good luck.

Would you like to let us know what you plan to do with your panel of cell lines and where you hope to get them from? There are several ladies here who regularly attend breast cancer conferences and are quite fluent/ used to
the "gobbledygook" Rhonda referred to in her post to this thread in 2007.

[Lani]

after a quick perusal of the article you cited by Subik et al I found the following:

We have
confirmed that SKBR-3, AU 565 and BT-474 overexpress
HER2,30 and found that another cell line,
MDA-MD-435, also over-expresses HER2.
Molecular subtypes, originally identified by gene

Table 3. The results of IHC analysis for all breast caner cell lines.
ER PR HER2 CK5/6 EGFR Ki-67 AR Subtype
MDA-MB-231 0 0 0–1+ − 1+ 100% 8 Basal
SKBR-3 0 0 3+ − 2+ 20% 8 HER2
MDA-MB-231-UR 0 0 0–1+ − 3+ 100% 7 Basal
MCF-12A 0 0 0–1+ + 2+ 95% 5 Basal
HBL101 0 0 0–1+ − 1+ 90% 4 Basal
MDA-MD-435 0 0 3+ − 0 80% 6 HER2
MCF-7 6 6 0–1+ − 1+ 90% 7 Luminal A
HS598T 0 0 0–1+ − 1+ 90% 0 Basal
MCF-10A 0 0 0–1+ + 2+ 30% 0 Basal
BT-20 0 0 0–1+ − 2+ 80% 4 Basal
MCF-10F 0 0 0–1+ + 1+ 100% 0 Basal
468 0 0 0 − 3+ 95% 8 Basal
AU 565 0 0 3+ − 1+ 95% 7 HER2
ZR-75- 1 3 4 2+ − 1+ 80% 8 Luminal A
BT-483 0 0 0 − 1+ 95% 4 Basal
BT-474 0 8 3+ − 1+ 70% 7 Luminal B
MDA-MB-453 0 0 0 − 0 80% 8 Unclassfied
Note: For ER, PR and AR, Allred scores were used.; for HER2 and EGFR the scoring system for HER2 was used; for CK5/6, any strong cytoplasmic stain
is considered as positive; and for Ki-67, the% of any intensity of nuclear stain was used.

I think you are confusing presence of any her2 ie, 0-1+, such as you discussed with respect to MCF7-- in some MCF7 with her2 amplification. Presence and amplification are two very different entities with many powers of magnitude difference in her2 content and entirely different behaviors and prognoses.

Looks like a typo may have been made in my original post/what it was based on as MDA-MB-435 is 3+ for her2 whereas MDA-MB-453 is her2-

AU 565 should also be added to the her2+ bc cell lines list.

Hope this corrects and updates this topic on this thread:

Naturally occurring (rather than produced by transfection of other her2- cell lines with her2) her2 + bc cell lines include
SKBr3, BT474, MDA-MB-435, AU 565, MDA-MB-361

MDA-MB 231 was always listed as her2-

Hope this helps