Overview
BT474 cells are a human breast cancer cell line that overexpresses the HER2 (ERBB2) receptor and are widely used as an in vitro model for studying HER2-positive breast cancer and its response to targeted therapies. Because HER2 amplification drives an aggressive subset of breast cancers, BT474 and related HER2-overexpressing lines provide a controlled system for investigating tumor cell biology, signaling pathways, and the mechanisms of drugs such as the tyrosine kinase inhibitor lapatinib. Researchers use these cells to characterize how treatment alters the cellular proteome, identifying proteins whose abundance changes in response to inhibition and that may serve as markers of drug response or candidates for new treatment strategies. Reproducible, quantitative approaches such as ion-current-based LC-MS proteomics allow thousands of proteins to be measured and significant treatment-induced changes to be detected. BT474 cells frequently appear alongside other breast cancer lines such as SKBR3 and HCC1954 in comparative studies. Related open-access research using BT474 and similar HER2-positive cell lines in cancer proteomics is available.