Effect of interferons on hormone-receptor levels of endometrial cancer-cells.

Endometrial cancer is a hormone sensitive tumor. Hormone receptor positive tumors respond better to progestins than hormone receptor negative tumors. Interferon has been shown to increase the hormone receptor level of melanocytes, breast and endometrial cancer. We have previously shown that interferons enhance the progesterone receptor level of AE-7 endometrial cancer cell line, which has a considerably high baseline level of progesterone receptors (201+/-19.7 fmole/mg of proteins). In this study the effect of interferons of two other endometrial cancer cell lines (HEC-1A and HEC-1B), with a low baseline level of estrogen and progesterone receptor levels (25+/-7-32+/-8 fmole/mg of proteins), was studied. Interferons have shown to possess similar cytostatic activity in the endometrial cancer cells studied, regardless of their hormone receptor status. However, hormone receptor levels in cells with low baseline hormone receptor levels were not significantly affected by the four interferons studied.