Direct effects of estrogen on c-fos and c-myc protooncogene expression and cellular proliferation in human breast cancer cells.

Estrogen induces DNA synthesis to a lesser degree, but with similar kinetics compared to insulin-like growth factors when added to quiescent MCF7 human breast cancer cells. Moreover, this steroid rapidly induces expression of the growth-related c-fos and c-myc protooncogenes. The induction was shown to be a direct effect, independent of protein synthesis. These results demonstrate that no growth factor production is involved in estrogen-induced protooncogene expression, and that these direct effects on gene expression may be an important step in estrogen-induced mitogenesis.