Primary research

Bioluminescence imaging reveals inhibition of tumor cell proliferation by Alzheimer's amyloid β protein

Hong Zhao¹ , Jinmin Zhu² , Kemi Cui¹ , Xiaoyin Xu² , Megan O'Brien³ , Kelvin K Wong¹ , Santosh Kesari^4,5 , Weiming Xia³ and Stephen TC Wong¹

¹  Center for Biotechnology and Informatics, The Methodist Hospital Research Institute and Department of Radiology, The Methodist Hospital, Weill Cornell Medical College, Houston, Texas 77030, USA

²  Department of Radiology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA

³  Center for Neurologic Disease, Department of Neurology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA

⁴  Department of Medical Oncology, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA

⁵  Department of Neurology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA

author email corresponding author email

Cancer Cell International 2009, 9:15doi:10.1186/1475-2867-9-15

Published:	1 June 2009

Abstract

Background

Cancer and Alzheimer's disease (AD) are two seemingly distinct diseases and rarely occur simultaneously in patients. To explore molecular determinants differentiating pathogenic routes towards AD or cancer, we investigate the role of amyloid β protein (Aβ) on multiple tumor cell lines that are stably expressing luciferase (human glioblastoma U87; human breast adenocarcinoma MDA-MB231; and mouse melanoma B16F).

Results

Quantification of the photons emitted from the MDA-MB231 or B16F cells revealed a significant inhibition of cell proliferation by the conditioning media (CM) derived from amyloid precursor protein (APP) over-expressing cells. The inhibition of U87 cells was observed only after the media was conditioned for longer than 2 days with APP over-expressing cells.

Conclusion

Our results suggest that Aβ plays an inhibitory role in tumor cell proliferation; this effect could depend on the type of tumor cells and amount of Aβ.