ISSN: 2578-4811
Authors: Michael Stevens, Isaac Daffron, Jonathan Low, Andrew Wright, Hannah Dille, Dora Dujmic, Donna Weinbrenner, Dorota Abramovitch, David Prager and Diana Ivankovic*
Breast cancer is a growing epidemic in today’s society. There are three main types of cells involved with MCF-7 breast cancer: cancer stem cells (CSC), progenitor cells (PC), and terminally differentiated cells (TDC). For the growth curve portion of this project, a line of MCF-7 breast cancer cells were grown with and without hydrogen peroxide and counted daily for 6 days. To mathematically model the cell growth, an ordinary differential equations model developed by Liu, et al. In their paper Nonlinear Growth Kinetics of Breast Cancer Stem Cells: Implications for Cancer Stem Cell Targeted Therapy was examined. While their model gives reasonable cell count estimates for short time periods, it greatly underestimates the number of CSC over longer time periods. This project adjusts their model by adding a feedback loop in order to more accurately estimate the number of CSC as well as PC and TDC. Thus, personalized targeted cancer stem cell treatment may be utilized in cancer patients with specific types of cancer. For the death curve portion of this project, MCF-12A healthy breast cells, and MCF-7 cancerous breast cells were grown in vitro, mimicking those growing in vivo. Red clover (Trifolium pratense) and blue false indigo (Baptisia australis) extracts were added to both cell types. Red clover and blue false indigo were chosen for this experiment due to their phytoestrogenic properties. Phytoestrogens are similar to mammalian estrogens and can, therefore, weakly bind to estrogen receptors, such as the ER+ receptors on MCF-7 cells. By performing a trypan blue exclusion assay, we were able to determine the death rates of both cell groups as a result of the added extracts. This project has helped researchers understand the rate at which cells died under exposure to the extracts.
Keywords: MCF-7; Trypan Blue Live-Dead Assay; MTS Assay; Red Clover; Blue False Indigo
