title: Relationship between quantity of silver stained nucleolar organizer region associated proteins (Ag-NORs) and growth rate suppression of breast cancer cell lines after interferon-gamma and 4-hydroxy-tamoxifen treatment.
abstract: The correlation between the silver-stained nucleolar organizer region associated proteins (Ag-NORs) and the growth rate suppression (GRS) of ten established breast cancer cell lines which were treated with 4-hydroxy-tamoxifen (OHT) and interferon-gamma (g-IFN), respectively, was investigated by means of automated image analysis. Previous studies have shown a statistically significant relationship between the Ag-NOR quantity and the population doubling time (PDT) of these cell clones. The results of the present study showed a highly significant correlation between the GRS and the Ag-NOR quantity in estrogen receptor (ER) positive tumour cell lines after OHT treatment (P < 0.001) whereas no strict correlation of these parameters could be demonstrated after g-IFN treatment in both ER positive and negative cell lines. Our results suggest a different behaviour of NOR-proteins in breast cancer cell lines if treated either with g-IFN or OHT, probably reflecting the different mechanism of cell suppression mediated by OHT and g-IFN. It is concluded that quantitative assessment of Ag-NORs is not as suitable for the determination of the GRS as it is for the determination of cell duplication rates obtained on untreated tumour cell lines.
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery I, University of Innsbruck, Austria.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Ofner
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hittmair
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Marth
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tötsch
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Daxenbichler
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Margreiter
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Böcker
authors.forename: K W
authors.initials: KW
authors.lastname: Schmid
mesh_terms: D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000473:pathology*; D002455:Cell Division / Q000187:drug effects; D006801:Humans; D007371:Interferon-gamma / Q000494:pharmacology*; D009687:Nuclear Proteins / Q000032:analysis*; D009697:Nucleolus Organizer Region / Q000737:chemistry*; D011960:Receptors, Estrogen / Q000032:analysis; D016622:Silver Staining; D013629:Tamoxifen / Q000031:analogs & derivatives* / Q000494:pharmacology; D014407:Tumor Cells, Cultured
chemical_list: D009687:Nuclear Proteins; D011960:Receptors, Estrogen; D013629:Tamoxifen; C016601:afimoxifene; D007371:Interferon-gamma