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Updated: Feb 5, 2026

Studying TGF-β Signaling and TGF-β-induced Epithelial-to-mesenchymal Transition in Breast Cancer and Normal Cells
Published on: October 27, 2020
β-Heregulin impairs EGF induced PLC-γ1 signalling in human breast cancer cells
Nadine Rommerswinkel1, Silvia Keil1, Alshaimaa Adawy2
1Centre for Biomedical Education and Research (ZBAF), Witten/Herdecke University, Witten, Germany.
Abstract:
The interplay of ErbB receptor homo- and heterodimers plays a crucial role in the pathology of breast cancer since activated signal transduction cascades coordinate proliferation, survival and migration of cells. EGF and β-Heregulin are well characterised ligands known to induce ErbB homo- and heterodimerisation, which have been associated with disease progression. In the present study, we investigated the impact of both factors on the migration of MDA-NEO and MDA-HER2 human breast cancer cells. MDA-NEO cells are positive for EGFR and HER3, while MDA-HER2 cells express EGFR, HER2 and HER3. Cell migration analysis revealed that β-Heregulin potently impaired EGF induced migration in both cell lines. Western blot studies showed that both ErbB receptor and PLC-γ1 tyrosine phosphorylation levels were diminished in EGF and β-Heregulin co-treated MDA-NEO and MDA-HER2 cells, which was further correlated to a significantly impaired calcium influx. Our data indicate that EGF and HRG may interfere with each other for receptor binding and dimerisation, which ultimately has an impact on signalling outcome.
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