The participation of oxidative stress in breast cancer cells progression and treatment resistance

Abstract

This article presents a general discussion about the participation of oxidative stress in relevant points related to breast cancer progression in vitro. All of the evidences presented here are based on published papers that used breast cancer cells with different phenotype characteristics in their research. We observed that oxidative stress could modulate by several manners the tumor progression and these effects are directly related to its concentration and time of cell exposure to these substances. Furthermore, oxidative stress produced and released by breast cancer cells is able to interfere in the metabolism of the adjacent normal cells in a manner that improve the survival of the neoplastic cells. In relation to breast cancer treatment, the role of oxidative stress is complex. At the same time that it can be responsible to the induction of cell death, oxidative stress can also modulate pathway that leads to increased expression of anti-apoptotic and resistance-related proteins. Therefore, the participation of oxidative stress in breast cancer is complex and very broad and its better understanding could be important to the development of more effective therapeutic strategies for the different forms clinically found of the disease.