Halting Breast Cancer Spread
(RRC - RI) -- New York researchers say drugs targeting four genes may stop breast cancer
from spreading to the lungs. The troublesome genes -- the EREG gene, the Cox-2 gene, the MMP1 gene and the MMP2 gene -- may be necessary for cancer to spread.
Scientists at Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Cancer Biology and Genetics Program at New York's Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center used three drugs, the cancer drug Erbitux, the anti-inflammatory drug Celebrex, and an experimental anti-inflammatory drug to target the four genes in mice, which had been injected with breast cancer cells.
Cancer cells where all four genes were inactivated had difficulty growing new blood vessels and this stopped cancer from spreading into the lungs. However, in mice where only one of the genes was inactivated, the cancer had no trouble spreading.
Clinical trials of the drug combination are being discussed.
http://www.robertsreview.com/#Gene_t...lanoma_cancers
http://www.hhmi.org/news/massague20070412.html
April 12, 2007
A Genetic "Gang of Four" Drives Spread of Breast Cancer Studies of human tumor cells implanted in mice have shown that the abnormal activation of four genes drives the spread of breast cancer to the lungs. The new studies by Howard Hughes Medical Institute researchers reveal that the aberrant genes work together to promote the growth of primary breast tumors. Cooperation among the four genes also enables cancerous cells to escape into the bloodstream and penetrate through blood vessels into lung tissues.
Although shutting off these genes individually can slow cancer growth and metastasis, the researchers found that turning off all four together had a far more dramatic effect on halting cancer growth and metastasis. Metastasis occurs when cells from a primary tumor break off and invade another organ. It is the deadliest transformation that a cancer can undergo, and therefore researchers have been looking for specific genes that propel metastasis.
“While silencing these genes individually was effective, silencing the quartet nearly completely eliminated tumor growth and spread.”
Joan Massagué
In the newly published experiments, the researchers also found that they could reduce the growth and spread of human breast tumors in mice by simultaneously targeting two of the proteins produced by these genes, using drugs already on the market. The researchers are exploring clinical testing of combination therapy with the drugs—cetuximab (trade name Erbitux) and celecoxib (Celebrex)—to treat breast cancer metastasis.
The research team, led by Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Joan Massagué at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, published its findings in articles in the April 12, 2007, issue of the journal
Nature and in the online early edition of the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on April 9, 2007.
Linear Mode
