Gene expression pattern in CXCR4+ and CXCR4- subpopulation of breast cancer cells

The goal of this study was to identify signalling molecules downstream of CXCR4 in breast cancer cells. For this purpose, we sorted CXCR4-positive and CXCR4-negative cells from MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cell line by flow cytometry and performed microarrays analysis. Three sets of samples, each in quadruplicate, were analyzed. These include CXCR4-positive subpopulation, CXCR4-positive subpopulation treated with SDF-1 (ligand for CXCR4, also called CXCL12) for one hour and CXCR4-negative subpopulation.