Intracellular calcium and breast-cancer cell-growth and differentiation

The growth of normal human breast epithelial cells in vitro, as well as those of other cell types is strongly influenced by the concentration of calcium in the culture medium [Ca++]e. The aim of this study was to ascertain if calcium also affects breast tumor cell growth in vitro. To address this question, the metastatic breast cancer cells MCF-7 were grown at low (0.04 mM, L-Ca) and high (2.5 mM, H-Ca) [Ca++]e. In each culture condition, we estimated intracellular calcium levels (Ca++]i from Indo-1 fluorescence by the ratio method. We showed that [Ca++]i increased with [Ca++]e, the [Ca++]i values ranging from approximately 50 to 250 nM. Changes of [Ca++]i ware accompanied by changes of cell shape and cell kinetic parameters. In H-Ca, cells were flat and 3 times larger than in L-Ca and the percentage of cells in the S+G2+M phases as well as the percentage of Ki-67 positive cells rapidly dropped on days 3-4 of culture in contrast to cells grown in L-Ca. In H-Ca, the cell growth arrest corresponded to maximal [Ca++]i which was stable during the stationary phase; at that time, a switch from H-Ca to L-Ca resulted in a drop of [Ca++]i and a resumption of cell growth.. In H-Ca, modifications in cell differentiation parameters such as diminution of ER expression and increases of lipid content and EMA expression were observed as compared to cells grown m L-Ca. Our results suggest that MCF-7 cells have retained some calcium dependency and that agents that can increase [Ca++]i in breast tumor cells may limit their proliferation and trigger at least a partial differentiation.