Customer Publication
Stromal collagen IV expression and risk of breast cancer death in ductal carcinoma in situ
Journal: BJC Reports (2025)
Research Areas: Cancer Research
Cell Lines: MCF-7, MDA-MB-231, JIMT-1 (Human breast cancer cell line)
Summary: The aim of the study by Stromal collagen IV expression and risk of breast cancer death in ductal carcinoma in situ was to determine whether elevated expression of stromal (and periductal) type-IV collagen in ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) tissue is associated with an increased risk of death from breast cancer, and to test in vitro whether collagen IV influences the motility of various breast-cancer cell lines. They found that high stromal collagen IV expression (score 2-3 vs 0-1) was associated with an increased odds ratio of about 2.5 for breast-cancer death (95 % CI 1.16–5.39), and after adjustment for tumour size, margin status, comedo necrosis and progesterone-receptor negativity the odds increased to approximately 4.27 (95 % CI 1.64–11.1). In the cell-line assays they showed that coating surfaces with collagen IV accelerated migration of a triple-negative breast-cancer line (from ~5.7 to ~7.7 µm/h), whereas an ER⁺/HER2⁻ line actually migrated slower on the coating (7.8 → 6.6 µm/h) and a HER2⁺ line showed no significant change. This suggests that stromal collagen IV may mark a more aggressive micro-environment in DCIS and in at least some subtypes functionally promote cancer-cell motility.The authors used the HoloMonitor M4 to carry out the cell motility assays of the breast-cancer lines on collagen IV-coated vs uncoated surfaces to automatically track individual cells and compute average migration speeds