Paclitaxel and Vinblastine Increase Plasminogen Activator Inhibitor-1 Production in Human Breast Cancer MCF-7 Cells but Not MDA-MB-231 Cells

Cancer chemotherapy increases the risk of thrombosis; however, the mechanisms underlying this thrombosis are not completely understood. Plasminogen activator inhibitor (PAI)-1 is a key molecule in the fibrinolytic system that inhibits tissue plasminogen activator and urokinase, which converts plasminogen into plasmin; therefore, excess PAI-1 increases the risk of thrombosis. In this study, we investigated whether temporary treatment of the human luminal A-type breast cancer cell line MCF-7 with antitumor drugs clinically used for breast cancer therapy promotes PAI-1 production. Treatment of MCF-7 cells with paclitaxel (PTX), a microtubule-stabilizing antitumor drug, at 1 µM for 2 h elevated the PAI-1 concentration of the conditioned medium at 48 h after treatment but not in those treated with tamoxifen and cyclophosphamide. Microtubule assembly inhibitors vinblastine (VBT) and vincristine (VCT) also increased the PAI-1 concentration in the conditioned medium. PAI-1 (SERPINE1) expression was upregulated in MCF-7 cells after PTX, VBT, and VCT treatment; this increase in expression persisted for eight days. In contrast, PAI-1 production in MDA-MB-231 cells treated with PTX, VBT, or VCT did not increase with increasing PAI-1 concentration. This study demonstrated that temporary low-dose treatment with microtubule-associated anticancer drugs increased PAI-1 release from MCF-7 cells but not from MDA-MB-231 cells. These results indicate that chemotherapy against luminal A-type breast cancer using microtubule-associated drugs may cause thrombosis through the inhibition of the fibrinolytic system by PAI-1.