Do fasudil and Y-27632 affect the level of transient receptor potential (TRP) gene expressions in breast cancer cell lines?

Breast cancer (BC) is the most frequent cancer type in women, and the mortality rate is high especially in metastatic disease. Ion channels such as the transient receptor potential (TRP) channels correlate with malignant growth and cancer progression. Hence, some authors have suggested that the expression levels of TRP channels may be used as a marker in the diagnosis and predicting the prognosis of BC. Also, in some recent studies, targeting TRP channels are suggested as a novel treatment strategy in BC. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of two Rho-kinase (ROCK) inhibitors, fasudil and Y-27632, on the expression levels of TRP channel genes in breast cancer cell lines (ZR-75-1, MCF7, and MDA-MB-231) and breast epithelial cell line (hTERT-HME1). The expression levels of TRP genes were determined by quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). We found that fasudil had reduced the TRPC1, TRPV2 expression levels in the ZR-75-1, MCF7, and MDA-MB-231 cell lines. On the other hand, fasudil and Y-27632 had reduced TRPM6 expression levels in all cell lines. Y-27632 increased the expression levels of TRPC7 in all cell lines. In conclusion, this is the first study demonstrating that the inhibition of ROCK pathway changes the expression levels of some TRP genes. Also, our study has firstly shown that the expression levels of the TRP genes which are suggested as a diagnostic and prognostic biomarker in BC, were changed with the treatment of fasudil and Y-27632.