Breast cancer develops when epithelial cells multiply uncontrollably and create a mass of tissue known as a tumor. Breast cancer affects a large number of people today. Breast cancer is anticipated to be the most prevalent cancer in the United States in 2022 [1]. This disease was acknowledged globally as the leading cause of mortality among women [2].
The prevention and treatment of breast cancer can benefit from using vitamins, according to investigations [3]. Both normal mammary glands and breast cancer cells have been found to express vitamin D receptors. To immunize the patient against breast cancer, vitamin D stimulates the vitamin D receptor and functions as a master transcriptional regulator of autophagy [4]. Numerous pre-clinical investigations have suggested that the 1,25D ligand plays a function in limiting normal breast gland growth and vulnerability to carcinogenesis. According to several investigations, vitamin D insufficiency is widespread in patients experiencing breast cancer, which enhances the risk of cancer development [5]. Yao et al. [6] discovered that higher levels of serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D decrease the risk of mortality and cancer among 1666 cancer patients, and this result was more significant in premenopausal women. In addition, studies evaluating the impact of vitamin D on transgenic mice models indicated that vitamin D could inhibit numerous distinctive mammary tumor models, some of which are highly comparable to human breast cancer [7–13]. Both vitamin D receptor and Cyp27b1 deletion were found to promote tumorigenesis. According to research by Ooi et al. [14] osteolytic lesions manifest themselves faster in vitamin D-deficient rats than in vitamin D-sufficient rats.
When doxorubicin is combined with vitamin E, the survival of breast cancer cells is significantly shortened with minimum damage to normal cells, as demonstrated by Ahmadi et al. [15]. Despite the fact that a high dose of vitamin E exacerbates the cytotoxicity induced by doxorabicin.
Sigounas et al. [16] discovered that vitamin E reduces cellular proliferation in breast and prostate tumor cells by lowering deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) synthesis in cell lines. Additionally, substantial DNA fragmentation was seen while examining high molecular weight samples, suggesting that the vitamin E-supplemented cell lines underwent apoptosis.
Nevertheless, several investigations have found that the administration of vitamin E does not affect the incidence of breast cancer [17–21].
Stiffness, nonlinearity, anisotropy, and heterogeneity are mechanical characteristics of cells. Numerous biological processes, including growth, adhesion, motility, deformation, and cell differentiation, are regulated by these characteristics [22–25]. Alterations in cellular and extracellular mechanical characteristics during cancer development alter forces on cells and influence tumor cells' morphogenetic evolution, invasion, and proliferation [26, 27].
Evaluating the mechanical characteristics of the tumor and normal cells is one technique to differentiate them. Since the mechanical characteristics and cytoskeleton structure are altered by cell carcinogenesis [28].
For instance, normal cells are less fluid [29] and more rigid than tumor cells [30–32]. In addition, the stiffness of tumor cell lines tends to decrease as the severity of cancer enhances [33]. According to Plodinec et al. [34], malignant breast tissues differ from normal tissues in that they have a wider dispersion of elastic modulus and a lower stiffness peak. Tumor cells increased the contraction of the actomyosin cortex when stretched by external stimuli compared to the related normal cells [35, 36]. Additionally, there are alterations in how tumor cells interact physically with their adjacent cells and the extracellular components surrounding them, affecting the tumors' growth rate, morphology, and invasion [37, 38]. Alterations in the mechanical characteristics of cells are accompanied by alterations in the mechanical characteristics of the extracellular environment. The majority of the extracellular milieu of the tumor is made up of fibrous tissue. As breast cancer progresses, the cross-linking between these fibers grows, making the extracellular matrix environment rigid [39]. Additionally, timely detection [40], cancer prevention [41], and measuring the efficacy of anti-cancer medications can all benefit from the distinction between normal and malignant cells [31, 42].
AFM is one of the methods that may be employed to study cell mechanical characteristics [43]. AFM is well recognized as a useful method for investigating biological materials[44–46]. It is also a versatile technique for non-destructively imaging and quantifying the elastic characteristics of living cells under physiological settings [47–51]. The contact force and distance between the tip and the sample (tip-sample) are calculated using the AFM technique when the tip moves up and down at a point. Young's modulus, which provides a quantitative value of the cellular elastic characteristics, is used to represent deformation in this method. The contact-mode point-spectroscopy curve, also known as the force curve, can be used to calculate Young's modulus. Other mechanical characteristics of materials, including adhesion, deformation, and dissipation, can be determined by employing these force curves in conjunction with Young's modulus. Nevertheless, attaining these values precisely may be challenging [52]. Ex vivo mechanical characteristics of breast cancer cells, bladder cells, and fibroblasts have been studied using this method thus far [25, 53–57].
Although numerous investigations have been undertaken to examine the influence of vitamins on breast cancer healing, only several investigations have been carried out to study the impact of vitamins E and D on the mechanical characteristics of breast cancer cells. This investigation was carried out in order to determine how vitamins D and E affect the mechanical characteristics of malignant breast tissues.