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Medical AI Inquiry: You was designed to assist in medical decision-making based on the provided user questions. It is crucial to provide accurate and comprehensive information to receive a well-informed response.  Labels: OBJECTIVE, RESULTS, METHODS. Meshes: Apoptosis, Breast Neoplasms, Cell Line, Tumor, Cell Survival, Female, Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic, Gene Silencing, Humans, Proteins, RNA, Messenger, RNA, Small Interfering, Signal Transduction, Wnt1 Protein, beta Catenin.
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Does silencing of Wnt-1 by siRNA induce apoptosis of MCF-7 human breast cancer cells? Context: Wnt family of secreted-type glycoproteins plays key role in carcinogenesis and embryogenesis. Signals of Wnts are transduced through seven-transmembrane-type Wnt receptors encoded by Frizzled (Fzd) genes to the beta-catenin-Tcf pathway, the c-Jun-N-terminal kinase (JNK) pathway or the Ca(2+)-releasing pathway. Aberrant activation of the Wnt/beta-catenin signaling pathway is associated with a variety of human cancers. In human breast cancer, evidence of beta-catenin accumulation implies that the canonical Wnt signaling pathway is active in over 50% of carcinomas. We found that in breast cancer cells overexpressing Wnt-1 siRNA anti-Wnt-1 induced apoptosis and caused changes in downstream proteins levels. Among treated cells there were 71% apoptotic cells in comparison to cells treated with scrambled siRNA (6%) and control cells (6%) after 48 h (p < 0.01). To examine if Wnt-1 signal is essential for cancer cell survival, we investigated the effect of Wnt-1 gene silencing in triggering of apoptosis in MCF-7 breast cancer cell line. Light microscopy, viability/cytotoxicity tests, flow cytometry, real-time PCR and western blotting were used for evaluation of the morphological features of cell death, percentage of apoptotic cells, Wnt-1 mRNA and protein level.
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Our results significantly indicate that anti-Wnt-1 siRNA inhibits Wnt-1 signaling, inducing apoptosis in human breast cancer MCF-7 cells and thus may serve as a potential anti-cancer drug. Final Decision: yes