Chunk #16 — Results — Alcohol stimulates expression of the EMT signature mesenchymal marker protein vimentin in breast and colon cancer cells and normal intestinal epithelial cells
We hypothesized that alcohol is promoting cancer progression by stimulating EMT in cancer cells. The most widely validated signature biomarker of EMT is the mesenchymal protein vimentin (De Wever et al., 2008). Caco-2 (colon cancer), MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 (breast cancer), and IEC-6 (non-transformed, normal intestinal) cells grown on glass coverslips were stimulated with 0.2% (43 mM) alcohol containing media or media alone for 4 days. As seen in Figure 1A-D, alcohol stimulated the expression of vimentin in normal intestinal IEC-6 cells as well as both the colon cancer and breast cancer cells. Mean Image J densitometry fluorescence values for the four cell types were: Caco-2 control (64 ± 9) and alcohol treated (119 ± 14); MCF-7 control (62 ± 13) and alcohol treated (211 ± 15); MDA-MB-231 control (101 ± 12) and alcohol treated (196 ± 12); and IEC-6 control (81 ± 4) and alcohol treated (157 ± 6). Thus, the untreated Caco-2, MCF-7, and IEC-6 cells showed low vimentin expression. However, the MDA-MB-231 cells did show higher basal expression of vimentin. High basal expression of vimentin in the MDA-MB-231
