A phenol amine molecule from Salinivenus iranica acts as the inhibitor of cancer stem cells in breast cancer cell lines

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 13; no. 1; p. 12669
• Main Authors: Safarpour, Atefeh, Ebrahimi, Marzieh, Fazeli, Seyed Abolhassan Shahzadeh, Amoozegar, Mohammad Ali
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 04.08.2023; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 631/61; 692/4028; Animal models; Animals; Antineoplastic Agents - pharmacology; Antineoplastic Agents - therapeutic use; Apoptosis; Breast cancer; Breast Neoplasms - pathology; Caspase-3; Cell culture; Cell Line, Tumor; Cell Proliferation; Colonies; Cytotoxicity; Female; Fibroblasts; Humanities and Social Sciences; Humans; MCF-7 Cells; Metabolites; Mice; Microorganisms; Molecular weight; multidisciplinary; Neoplastic Stem Cells - metabolism; Phenols; Phenols - pharmacology; Pluripotency; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Stem cells; Strains (organisms); Tumor cell lines; Tumorigenesis
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-39736-9

In recent years, the anticancer properties of metabolites from halophilic microorganisms have received a lot of attention. Twenty-nine halophilic bacterial strains were selected from a culture collection to test the effects of their supernatant metabolites on stem cell-like properties of six human cancer cell lines. Human fibroblasts were used as normal control. Sphere and colony formation assay were done to assess the stem cell-like properties. invasion and migration assay, and tumor development in mice model were done to assess the anti-tumorigenesis effect in vitro and in vivo. The metabolites from Salinivenus iranica demonstrated the most potent cytotoxic effect on breast cancer cell lines (IC50 = 100 µg/mL) among all strains, with no effect on normal cells. In MDA-MB-231 cells, the supernatant metabolites enhanced both early and late apoptosis (approximately 9.5% and 48.8%, respectively) and decreased the sphere and colony formation ability of breast cancer cells. Furthermore, after intratumor injection of metabolites, tumors developed in the mice models reduced dramatically, associated with increased pro-apoptotic caspase-3 expression. The purified cytotoxic molecule, a phenol amine with a molecular weight of 1961.73 Dalton (IC50 = 1 µg/mL), downregulated pluripotency gene SRY-Box Transcription Factor 2 ( SOX -2) expression in breast cancer cells which is associated with resistance to conventional anticancer treatment. In conclusion, we suggested that the phenol amine molecule from Salinivenus iranica could be a potential anti-breast cancer component.