Progression of Luminal Breast Tumors Is Promoted by Ménage à Trois between the Inflammatory Cytokine TNFα and the Hormonal and Growth-Supporting Arms of the Tumor Microenvironment
Figure 9
In response to combined stimulation by TNFα + Estrogen + EGF, breast tumor cells migrate out of tumor-spheroids. Non-stimulated breast tumor cells were plated in nonadherent conditions, and tumor-spheroids were allowed to form for 72 hr. Then, the cells were either non-stimulated (a), or stimulated by TNFα + Estrogen + EGF (concentrations as in Figure 1) (b) for additional 24–96 hr. Non-stimulated cells: cells grown with the diluents of the above factors. Cells were photographed daily using light microscopy at ×10 magnification. Cell viability tests indicated that single cells migrating out of tumor-spheroids formed in the presence of TNFα + Estrogen + EGF stimulation were alive. In all panels, the results are from a representative experiment of . The surface expression of E-cadherin by the cells that were included in this analysis is shown in Table 1 and in Figure S3.
