Mesenchymal Stromal Cells from Fernale Donors Enhance Breast Cancer Cell Proliferation in vitro

The interplay between tumor stroma and breast cancer cells (BCCs) is thought to play a significant role in breast cancer. The current knowledge of human mesenchymal stromal cell (MSC) and BCC interaction is contradictory, and the donor sex issue is not addressed at all. We hypothesized that donor sex could have an effect on proliferation of MSCs or BCCs in co-culture in vitro. Three estrogen receptor-negative BCC lines, 19 primary human MSCs and breast tissue-derived fibroblasts from 4 donors were used. MSCs from female donors enhanced BCC proliferation (p = 0.005). The change in BCC proliferation was only partly due to soluble factors excreted by MSCs. The highly aggressive BCC line MDA-MB-231 induced the proliferation of MSCs (p < 0.001) and fibroblasts (p = 0.037) in co-culture experiments. The magnitude in proliferation change was cell line dependent and partly sex dependent. (C) 2014 S. Karger AG, Basel