RESUMO
Melatonin has been shown repeatedly to inhibit the growth of human breast tumor cells in vitro and in vivo. Its antiproliferative effects have been well studied in MCF-7 human breast cancer cells and several other estrogen receptor α (ERα)-positive human breast cancer cell lines. However, the MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cell line, an ERα-negative cell line widely used in breast cancer research, has been shown to be unresponsive to melatonin's growth-suppressive effect in vitro. Here, we examined the effect of melatonin on the cell proliferation of several ERα-negative breast cancer cell lines including MDA-MB-231, BT-20, and SK-BR-3 cells. Although the MT1 G-protein-coupled receptor is expressed in all three cell lines, melatonin significantly suppressed the proliferation of SK-BR-3 cells without having any significant effect on the growth of MDA-MB-231 and BT-20 cells. We confirmed that the MT1-associated Gα proteins are expressed in MDA-MB-231 cells. Further studies demonstrated that the melatonin unresponsiveness in MDA-MB-231 cells may be caused by aberrant signaling downstream of the Gαi proteins, resulting in differential regulation of ERK1/2 activity.