Expression of CXCR7 and CXCR4 in Breast Cancer Disparities
By: Mohseen Fathima Syed Sultan Mohideen, Crystal Lee
Department: Biology
Faculty Advisors: Dr. Nicole Salazar Velmeshev, Dr. Annette Chan, Dr. Scott Roy
Breast cancer (BrCa) is among the most common cancers in the world, especially in women. Metastasis and treatment resistance are two major variables that contribute to BrCa patients' mortality. While, chemokines and chemokine receptors (CRs) are involved in tissue differentiation, hematopoiesis, inflammation, immunological control, as well as tumor growth - these receptors are also critical in the development and incidence of BrCa and can be studied to find intervention targets for BrCa biotherapy. This study focuses on the chemokine receptors 4 (CXCR4) and 7 (CXCR7), G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) that are activated in multiple human malignancies by the same ligand, CXCL12. These receptors are known to be important players in the tumor/tumor microenvironment (TME), supporting tumor growth, targeting cell proliferation and migration, and coordinating immune and stromal cell recruitment. The objective of the study is to investigate the expression patterns of CXCR7/CXCR4 signaling pathways with the cellular assays that are involved in the development of BrCa tumors including proliferation, cell motility, angiogenesis, and distant metastasis among the racial category of representative BrCa cell lines. In this study, we will first analyze Chemokine receptor (CR) expression from racially diverse TCGA patient samples using bioinformatic analyses to screen the gene expression profile in the BrCa Tumor Microenvironment and further determine the expression of CXCR7 and CXCR4 in cellular-level assays like Immuno Cytochemistry and Flow Cytometry among MCF-10A, MCF-7, ZR-75-30, HCC1419, and HCC1954 cell lines.