Migration Suppressive Effect of Rapamycin in MDA-MB-231 Cells

Year 2025, Volume: 15 Issue: 4, 313 - 319

Ertan Katırcı , Remziye Kendirci , Suna Karadeniz Saygılı , Nureddin Cengiz

Abstract

Objective: The current study aims to evaluate the effects of rapamycin, an mTOR inhibitor, on cell migration and cell proliferation in the MDA-MB-231 human breast cancer cell line, which is a triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) model. TNBC is notable for its aggressive phenotype and lack of any useful conventional treatment methods, and due to this tumor progression, it's necessary to look at new treatment methods.
Materials and Methods: The study utilized a wound healing assay to assess the impact of rapamycin on cell migration, and Western blot analysis was performed to examine the inhibition of mTOR signaling.
Results: The findings indicated that rapamycin inhibited cell migration and proliferation due to selective inhibition of mTOR and p70S6K phosphorylation, which are two of the principal proteins implicated in tumor progression. Of note, rapamycin administration did not affect total protein levels for these proteins, which indicates that rapamycin has an agonistic effect on mTOR and p70S6K.
Conclusion: These findings suggest that rapamycin may serve as a potential therapeutic agent for controlling tumor growth and metastasis in TNBC. Further studies still need to be performed to determine the clinical efficacy of this treatment in vivo.

Keywords

Rapamycin , Cancer , mTOR , p70S6K , Proliferation , Migration

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