Increased levels of choline-containing compounds, phosphomonoesters and phosphodiesters in breast cancer, which are indicative of altered choline and phospholipid metabolism, have been reported using in vivo, in vitro and ex vivo NMR studies.
By NMR analysis, we demonstrated that EB-3D is able to reduce the synthesis of phosphocholine, and using flow cytometry, immunoblotting, and q-RT-PCR as well as proliferation and invasion assays, we proved that EB-3D strongly impairs breast cancer cell proliferation, migration, and invasion.
Hybrid compounds were synthesized by simple and convenient methods in the lab, characterized by NMR and Mass spectral methods and screened for cytotoxicity against A549 (lung), Hela (cervical), MCF7 (breast) and MDA-MB-231 (breast) cancer cell lines respectively.
We used 1H NMR to identify metabolites in the serum of breast cancer patients (n = 27) and performed Real-time Polymerase Chain Reaction analysis for quantifying the expression of IP3R type 3 and type 2 in tissues from breast cancer patients (n = 40).
NMR spectra showed that phosphocholine (i.e., a biomarker of breast cancer malignant transformation) signals were stronger in control than in treated cells, but significantly decreased upon treatment with tamoxifen/cisplatin.