Effect of fetal bovine serum on erythropoietin receptor expression and viability of breast cancer cells

Guan-Young Teo; Abdullah Rasedee; Nagi A Al-Haj; Chaw Yee Beh; Chee Wun How; Heshu Sulaiman Rahman; Noorjahan Banu Alitheen; Rozita Rosli; Al-Shwyeh Hussah Abdullah; Abdelwahid Saeed Ali

doi:10.1016/j.sjbs.2019.11.032

Effect of fetal bovine serum on erythropoietin receptor expression and viability of breast cancer cells

Saudi J Biol Sci. 2020 Feb;27(2):653-658. doi: 10.1016/j.sjbs.2019.11.032. Epub 2019 Dec 6.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Bioscience, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysia.
² Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysia.
³ Monash University, 47500 Bandar Sunway, Selangor, Malaysia.
⁴ College of Medicine, University of Sulaimani, Sulaimaniah, Republic of Iraq.
⁵ Faculty of Biotechnology and Molecular Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysia.
⁶ Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysia.
⁷ College of Science, Imam Abdul Rahman Bin Faisal University, Saudi Arabia.
⁸ College of Medicine, King Khalid University, Saudi Arabia.

Abstract

Erythropoietin receptors (EPORs) are present not only in erythrocyte precursors but also in non-hematopoietic cells including cancer cells. In this study, we determined the effect of fetal bovine serum (FBS) in culture medium on the EPOR expression and viability of the estrogen receptor (ER)-positive MCF-7 and ER-negative MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells. Using flow cytometry, we showed that the inclusion of 10% FBS in the medium increased the EPOR expressions and viabilities of MDA-MB-231 and MCF-7 cells. The MDA-MB-231 showed greater EPOR expression than MCF-7 cells, suggesting that the presence of ERs on cells is associated with poor expression of EPOR. Culture medium containing 10% FBS also caused increased number of breast cancer cells entering the synthesis phase of the cell cycle. The study also showed that rHuEPO treatment did not affect viability of breast cancer cells. In conclusion, it was shown that the inclusion of FBS in culture medium increased expression of EPOR in breast cancer cells and rHuEPO treatment had no effect on the proliferation of these cancer cells.

Keywords: CFU-e, colony forming units-erythroid; EPOR; EPOR, erythropoietin receptors; ER, estrogen receptor; FBS, fetal bovine serum; Fetal bovine serum; MCF-7 cell; MDA-MB-231 cell; MTT, 3-[4,5-dimethylthiazol-2yl]-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide; rHuEPO, recombinant human erythropoietin.