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The direct effect of estrogen on cell viability and apoptosis in human gastric cancer cells

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Abstract

Epidemiology researches indicated that gastric cancer is a male-predominant disease; both expression level of estrogen and expression pattern of estrogen receptors (ERs) influence its carcinogenesis. But the direct effect of estrogen on gastric cancer cells is still unclear. This study aimed to explore the direct effect of β-estradiol (E2) on gastric cancer cells. SGC7901 and BGC823 were treated with a serial of concentrations of E2. The survival rates of both the cell lines were significantly reduced, and the reduction of viability was due to apoptosis triggered by E2 treatment. Caspase 3 was activated in response to the increasing E2 concentration in both SGC7901 and BGC823. Cleaved Caspase 3 fragments were detected, and the expression levels of Bcl-2 and Bcl-xL were reduced. Apoptosis was further confirmed by flow cytometry. The expression level of PEG10, an androgen receptor target gene, was reduced during E2 treatment. Both ERα and ERβ were expressed in these cell lines, and the result of bioinformatics analysis of gastric cancer from GEO datasets indicated that the expression levels of both ERα and ERβ were significantly higher in noncancerous gastric tissues than in gastric cancer tissues. Our research indicated that estrogen can reduce cell viability and promote apoptosis in gastric cancer cells directly; ERs expression level is associated with gastric cancer. Our research will help to understand the mechanism of gender disparity in gastric cancer.

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Acknowledgments

Q. J. and L. M. contributed equally to this work. The study was supported by the Hubei Province Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 2012FFB04316), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 30801336 and No. 81102863), and The Incubator Project of Renmin Hospital Wuhan University (2013RMFH008). All authors of the manuscript have contributed to this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Central Laboratory, Renmin Hospital, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430060, Hubei, People’s Republic of China

    Jian Qin & Min Liu

  2. Department of Geriatric, Renmin Hospital, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430060, Hubei, People’s Republic of China

    Yarong Hao

  3. Wuhan Centers for Disease Prevention and Control, Wuhan, 430022, Hubei, People’s Republic of China

    Xiaomin Wu

  4. Department of Immunology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Wuhan University, Donghu Road 185, Wuhan, 430071, Hubei, People’s Republic of China

    Qianshan Ding, Xiang Ji & Jie Xiong

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  1. Jian Qin
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Correspondence to Jie Xiong.

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Jian Qin and Min Liu have contributed equally to this work.

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Qin, J., Liu, M., Ding, Q. et al. The direct effect of estrogen on cell viability and apoptosis in human gastric cancer cells. Mol Cell Biochem 395, 99–107 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11010-014-2115-2

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