European Journal of Molecular & Clinical Medicine

Background: Breast cancer is always known to be a major health problem globally. Though
many advancements are achieved in treatment strategy for breast cancer, still the patient survival
rate is not promising for all the affected patients. Hence there is an emerging need for an
alternative medicine for treating cancer patients.
Objective: Thus, we aimed to understand the possibility of using commonly available red
seaweed, Gracilaria corticota in treating breast cancer. To analyse this, we aimed to check the
seaweed extract’s efficiency in breast cancer cell lines, MCF 7 using proteome wide analysis.
Method: The MCF7 cells were treated with red seaweed extract and incubated for 48 hrs.
Further the treated cells were scraped and lysed to extract the proteins. The extracted proteins
were estimated and further subjected to proteomic profiling. To analyse the differential protein
expression and identification of the proteins, two-dimensional electrophoresis coupled with mass
spectrometry was adapted.
Results: We found upon seaweed extract treatment in MCF7 breast cancer cell line, important
apoptotic proteins were deregulated. These proteins include the down regulation of
BCL2,BCL2L1 and MCL1 and upregulation of BAX protein upon treatment when compared to
untreated cells.