Roghiyeh Pashaei-Asl
1 
, Maryam Pashaiasl
2,3,4, Esmaeil Ebrahimie
5, Maryam Lale Ataei
2, Maliheh Paknejad
1* 1 Department of Clinical Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
2 Department of Anatomical Sciences, School of Medicine, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences
3 Stem Cell Research Center, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran
4 Department of Reproductive Biology, Faculty of Advanced Medical Sciences, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran
5 Genomics Research Platform, School of Life Sciences, College of Science, Health and Engineering, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria 3086, Australia
Abstract
Introduction: Breast cancer, as the most common malignancy among women, is shown to have a high mortality rate and resistance to chemotherapy. Research has shown the possible inhibitory role of Mesenchymal stem cells in curing cancer. Thus, the present work used human amniotic fluid mesenchymal stem cell-conditioned medium (hAFMSCs-CM) as an apoptotic reagent on the human MCF-7 breast cancer cell line.
Methods: Conditioned medium (CM) was prepared from hAFMSCs. After treating MCF-7 cells with CM, a number of analytical procedures (MTT, real-time PCR, western blot, and flow cytometry) were recruited to evaluate the cell viability, Bax and Bcl-2 gene expression, P53 protein expression, and apoptosis, respectively. Human fibroblast cells (Hu02) were used as the negative control. In addition, an integrated approach to meta-analysis was performed.
Results: The MCF-7 cells’ viability was decreased significantly after 24 hours (P < 0.0001) and 72 hours (P < 0.05) of treatment. Compared with the control cells, Bax gene’s mRNA expression increased and Bcl-2’s mRNA expression decreased considerably after treating for 24 hours with 80% hAFMSCs-CM (P = 0.0012, P < 0.0001, respectively); an increasing pattern in P53 protein expression could also be observed. The flow cytometry analysis indicated apoptosis. Results from literature mining and the integrated meta-analysis showed that hAFMSCs-CM is able to activate a molecular network where Bcl2 downregulation stands in harmony with the upregulation of P53, EIF5A, DDB2, and Bax, leading to the activation of apoptosis.
Conclusion: Our finding demonstrated that hAFMSCs-CM presents apoptotic effect on MCF-7 cells; therefore, the application of hAFMSCs-CM, as a therapeutic reagent, can suppress breast cancer cells’ viabilities and induce apoptosis.