Novel adrenergic receptor inhibitors and their inhibition of stress-induced metastasis of breast cancer

An abstract of the study of Cotton et al. about adrenergic receptor inhibitors and their inhibition of stress-induced metastasis of breast cancer is presented. Among other things cancer survival rates decrease with metastasis formation. Laboratory cancer models reveal a biological role for the stress hormone norepinephrine (NE) in the metastasis of breast cancer, mediated by adrenergic receptors. Epidemiological studies suggest a reduction in mortality in breast cancer patients coincidentally prescribed 13-blockers, but our recent studies suggest effectiveness may differ according to 13-blocker design. Effects of norepinephrine and control β-blockers: NE alone was found to have no effect on the proliferation of MDA-MB-231, MDA-MB-468 and MCF-7 cancer cell lines at biologically relevant concentrations. NE significantly increased the migratory activity of both MDA-MB-468 and MCF-7 cells, but decreased migration of MDA-MB-231 cells. By designing compounds based around the known β2 selective antagonist ICI-118,551 and through the use of in silico techniques to identify completely new molecular scaffolds we have identified a small number of promising inhibitors of stress-induced metastasis in the β2 adrenoceptor bearing breast cancer cell line, MDA-MB-468.