Profiling Beta-1 Integrin Splicing in Different Breast Cancer Cell Lines

Integrin adhesion receptors are important in cancer cell adhesion, invasion, and metastasis. RNA transcripts for integrin β1 chains are subject to alternative splicing generating different isoforms of the same receptor. Integrin β1 has five known isoforms β1A, β1B, β1C1, β1C2, β1D. All are spliced at the cytoplasmic domain so that the different isoforms can interact with different intracellular signaling molecules and potentially be involved in different pathways. It is unknown how integrin splicing changes in cancer cells and whether different cancer stages correlate with changes in integrin splicing and the expression of different integrin isoforms. As such, this project aimed to conduct a qualitative and quantitative analysis of breast cancer cell lines, both metastatic and non-metastatic (MDAMB231 & MCF7), for their differential expression of integrin isoforms, particularly β1, using PCR and qPCR.