Studies on Breast Cancer Cell Interactions with Aged Endothelial Cells in Culture and Rat Models

The specific aim is to determine if breast cancer cells induce persistent gaps between aged endothelial cells as compared to young endothelial cells to cause increased cancer cell extravasation and metastasis. The objectives are: 1. To further elucidate the interactions of breast cancer cells with a...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Merkle, Carrie J
Format: Report
Language:English
Subjects:
AGING(PHYSIOLOGY)
Anatomy and Physiology
APOPTOSIS
BREAST CANCER
CELLS(BIOLOGY)
Ecology
ENDOTHELIUM
EXTRAVASATION
IN VITRO ANALYSIS
MEDICAL RESEARCH
METASTASIS
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Summary:The specific aim is to determine if breast cancer cells induce persistent gaps between aged endothelial cells as compared to young endothelial cells to cause increased cancer cell extravasation and metastasis. The objectives are: 1. To further elucidate the interactions of breast cancer cells with aged endothelial cells using co-cultures 2. To investigate possible mechanisms of breast cancer cell-induced persistent gap formation in in-vitro aged endothelial monolayers and 3. To begin examining the relevance of the in-vitro age-related differences in endothelial cell responses to breast cancer cell addition using rat in-vivo aging and metastasis models. In this final report we find that: 1. Addition of rat breast cancer cells to microvascular endothelial cells harvested from young rats causes transient gaps between endothelial cells whereas cancer addition to endothelial cells from old rats causes persistent gaps; 2. Early analysis shows that more breast cancer cells transmigrate endothelial cells harvested from young rats; and 3. Though metastases are larger in old rats compared to young rats after tail vein injection of cancer cells differences in immune function may be a confounding factor as cancer cell injection the mammary fat pads causes larger tumors in the old rats. The original document contains color images.