Open Access

ARTICLE

Cetyltrimethylammonium bromide inhibits the metastasis of breast cancer to the lungs by inhibiting epithelial–mesenchymal transition

NING LI^1,#, YANG CHEN^2,#, YONGJIE YANG^3,4, SHUHAN LYU¹, YUE PAN^1,5,*

1 State Key Laboratory of Fine Chemicals, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, School of Chemical Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China
2 Department of Pain Management, Shandong Provincial Hospital affiliated to Shandong First Medical University, Jinan, China
3 Department of Pharmacy, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China
4 Henan Key Laboratory of Precision Clinical Pharmacy, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China
5 Ningbo Institute of Dalian University of Technology, Ningbo, China

* Address correspondence to: Yue Pan,
# These authors have contributed equally to this work

BIOCELL 2022, 46(6), 1473-1482. https://doi.org/10.32604/biocell.2022.018278

Received 13 July 2021; Accepted 10 August 2021; Issue published 07 February 2022

Abstract

Breast cancer is a highly aggressive cancer in females. Metastasis is a major obstacle to the efficient and successful treatment of breast cancer. Cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) has anti-tumor effects on a variety of tumors. We showed that CTAB inhibits the metastasis of breast cancer to the lungs both in vitro and in vivo. Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is thought to be one of the major processes mediating breast cancer metastasis. We found that CTAB suppressed EMT and regulated the levels of the classical EMT markers E-cadherin, N-cadherin, vimentin, Snail and Twist1. Moreover, as a candidate anti-tumor agent, CTAB showed primary safety in vivo. Taken together, our results suggest that CTAB inhibits the migration of primary breast cancer to the lungs. Our findings confirm the clinical potential of CTAB for the treatment of breast cancer by targeting EMT. CTAB may thus be a promising novel anti-tumor drug for the treatment of breast cancer metastasis.

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