Question

As the cancer expert in the Biology Department at your school, NBC news contacts you to discuss the effects of bisphenol A (BPA) exposure on cancer risk. The reporter is very interested as she has read several articles on this topic. In particular she wants you to explain the following:

she has read that a combination of BPA with a high fat diet increase the risk of the offspring developing cancer while intake of some natural products (e.g., curcumin) can reduce the risk developing BPA-associated cancers. Can you design an in vivo study looking at the actions of BPA alone or in combination with either high fat diet or curcumin on mammary tumors in mice

Answer 1

The experimental steps for investigation of the role of BPA and curcumin in cancer can be designed as below:

1. Identify an appropriate cellular/animal model for conductin in vitro/in vivo research.
2. Consider that small animal model is being used. Divide appropriate number of healthy animals into 5 groups.
3. Groups 1 will be negative control, group 2 will be receiving BPA only, group 3 will receive curcumin only and group 4 will receive BPA as well as curcumin, group 5 will be high fat diet group with curcumin and BPA. Group 1 will receive vehicle in this case.
4. Treat all the experimental groups with their respective analytes and observe for any cancerous growth.
5. Extract the tissue and subject them for investigation of various cancerous markers depending upon the nature of cancer and the tissue excise.
6. Assume that breast cancer is being studied, thus isolate breast tissues and subject them for analysis of various markers of breast cancer such as herceptin etc.
7. Investigate the cellular levels of these analytes and report the results.

It is highly expected that the group of animals receiving high fat diet along with BPA and curcumin will show lowered cancerous growth as compared to those who received only vehicle. This will provide an experimental proof suggesting ability of high fat diet along with BPA to enhance carcinogenesis and pharmacological efficacy of curcumi to treat this modality.