Estrogenic regulation of host immunity against an estrogen receptor-negative human breast cancer

The risk of developing breast cancer is positively correlated with exposure to increased levels of estrogen and/or an increased duration of estrogen exposure. Many different mechanisms have been proposed to explain the association of estrogens with breast cancer risk; however, the well-documented immune modulatory properties of estrogen have received little attention. In part, this is due to a lack of suitable models for studying this relationship.

We have developed an animal model using estrogen receptor (ER)-negative human breast cancer cell line, MDA-MB-468, xenografted into severe combined immunodeficient (SCID) mice. We also generated the ER-alpha knockout (ER-alphaKO) mice on the SCID background and then tested the ability of 17beta-estradiol to stimulate growth of xenografted ER-negative human breast cancer tumors in wild-type and ER-alphaKO SCID mice. We quantified vascularization of tumors, macrophage recruitment to the tumor site by immunocytochemistry, and inflammatory cytokine production.

We show that estrogen treatment of C57BL/6/SCID mice promotes the growth of xenografted ER-negative tumors in wild-type mice and this estrogen-induced tumor growth is abrogated in ER-alphaKO mice. Tumor neovascularization of estrogen-treated mice was unchanged versus control; however, estrogen treatment of the C57BL/6/SCID host suppressed macrophage recruitment to and inflammatory cytokine production at the tumor site.

These data are consistent with estrogen modulation of the inflammatory response as a contributing factor in estrogen-stimulated growth of an ER-negative tumor. This effect on the host innate immune response was mediated by ER-alpha.