Trypanosoma cruzi infection induces proliferation and impairs migration of a human breast cancer cell line

Breast cancer is considered the type of cancer that most affects women in the world. The triple negative breast cancer is considered aggressive with poor prognosis. In the 1930s Russian researchers observed that T. cruzi has tropism for tumor cells. Since then, this research field has been subject of a numerous of researches. Here, we proposed to investigate the impact of T. cruzi infection on proliferation and migration of triple negative breast cancer cell line (MDA-MB-231). T. cruzi showed high invasion and multiplication rate in MDA-MB-231 cell line. The infection promoted the multiplication of MDA-MB-231 cell, continuous cell lysis throughout of days of in vitro infection and impaired MDA-MB-231 cell migration. Taken together, these results demonstrated the high susceptibility of MDA-MB-231 cell to T. cruzi and suggested that molecules from T. cruzi may impair host cell migration with potential use to avoid metastasis. [Display omitted] •Triple negative breast cancer cell is susceptible to Trypanosoma cruzi infection.•Trypanosoma cruzi infection promotes triple negative breast cancer cell proliferation.•Trypanosoma cruzi infection impairs triple negative breast cancer cell migration.