ITRAQ-Coupled 2D LC-MS/MS analysis of protein profile in MCF-7 human breast cancer cells incubated with doxorubicin: Potential role of heat shock protein 90

Doxorubicin is an effective agent in the treatment of breast cancer. In the present study, we apply the LC-MS/MS based proteomics analysis to identify differentially expressed proteins in MCF-7 cells incubated with doxorubicin. A total of 13 proteins including heat shock protein 90, nucleophosmin and tubulin displayed significantly changes (p < 0.05) compared with the control cells. Our data suggested that inhibition of Hsp90 and nucleophosmin, whose overexpression is vital to regulate tumor cell proliferation, and inhibition of tubulins, which plays a critical role in cell mitosis, may be involved in the mechanism of anti-tumor action of doxorubicin. Further validation by Western blot analysis and other functional assays should provide more support to our proteomics analysis.