Effect of 6 Weeks of Quercetin Supplementation on Expression of Some Tumor Angiogenesis Markers in Female Mice with Breast Cancer

Slowing down the process of angiogenesis in the tumor tissue is an emerging area in the treatment of breast cancer. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of quercetin supplementation on the expression of key angiogenesis factors in the tumor tissue of mice with breast cancer.

Sixteen female BALB /c mice were injected subcutaneously with estrogen receptor dependent breast cancer cells MC4L2 and divided into two groups of tumor (T) and tumor + quercetin (TQ). The mice in the TQ group were injected subcutaneously with 110 mg/kg quercetin solution for 6 weeks, 3 days a week. Forty-eight hours after the last injection, the animals were killed and their tumors were removed, frozen in liquid nitrogen and stored at -70° C. ΔCt, ΔΔCt, fold change and Mann-Whitney test at the significance level of (P<0.05) were calculated with GENEX software.

The results showed that quercetin supplementation significantly decreased the expression of ANGPT-2 (P<0.00), TIE-2 (P<0.00) and VEGF-A (P<0.00) genes in the TQ group compared with the T group. But ANGPT-1 expression increased, although this increase was not significant.

Quercetin supplementation may inhibit tumor angiogenesis and breast tumor growth.