(Press-News.org) ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center have discovered two cancer-spurring gene rearrangements that may trigger 5 to 7 percent of all breast cancers.
These types of genetic recombinations have previously been linked to blood cancers and rare soft-tissue tumors, but are beginning to be discovered in common solid tumors, including a large subset of prostate cancers and some lung cancers.
Looking at the genetic sequencing of 89 breast cancer cell lines and tumors, researchers found two distinct types of genetic rearrangements that appear to be driving this subset of breast cancers. The recurrent patterns were seen in the MAST kinase and Notch family genes. The findings were published online in Nature Medicine ahead of print publication.
"What's exciting is that these gene fusions and rearrangements can give us targets for potential therapies," says Arul Chinnaiyan, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Michigan Center for Translational Pathology, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, and S.P. Hicks Professor of Pathology at the U-M Medical School. "This is a great example of why treating cancer is so challenging. There are so many different ways genes get recombined and so many molecular subtypes, that there's not one solution that will work for all of them."
"The research provides additional evidence that these types of genetic rearrangements seem to be a significant cause of solid tumors," he adds.
The discoveries illuminate a promising path for future research, Chinnaiyan says. Gene sequencing offers opportunities to develop treatments for individuals whose tumors carry specific genetic combinations – a process commonly known as "personalized medicine."
The study demonstrated that the genetic rearrangements had profound effects on breast cancer cells in the lab, both in tissue culture and in mouse models.
"We cloned each of these rearrangements and introduced them into normal breast cell lines, where they appeared to have cancer-causing effects," Chinnaiyan says.
Previous U-M research showed that half of prostate cancers have a genomic rearrangement that causes the fusion of two genes called TMPRSS2 and ERG. This gene fusion, believed to be the triggering event for these prostate cancers, was initially discovered in 2005 by U-M researchers led by Chinnaiyan.
INFORMATION:
Additional authors: Dan R. Robinson, Shanker Kalyana-Sundaram, Yi-Mi Wu, Sunita Shankar, Xuhong Cao, Bushra Ateeq, Irfan A. Asangani, Matthew Iyer, Christopher A. Maher, Catherine S. Grasso, Robert J. Lonigro, Michael Quist, Javed
Siddiqui, Rohit Mehra, Xiaojun Jing, Thomas J. Giordano, Michael S. Sabel,
Celina G. Kleer, Nallasivam Palanisamy, Chandan Kumar-Sinha, all of U-M. Kalyana-Sundaram also of Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli, India
Rachael Natrajan, Maryou B. Lambros, Jorge S. Reis-Filho, of the Breakthrough Breast Cancer Research Centre, Institute of Cancer Research, London, UK.
Disclosures: The researchers report no conflicts of interest. U-M has filed for patent protection for these developments.
Funding: The specific aims of this project were supported by the Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program. The project was also supported in part by an American Association for Cancer Research Stand Up to Cancer (SU2C) breast cancer award, the National Functional Genomics Center supported by the Department of Defense, and the National Institutes of Health. Chinnaiyan is supported by the National Cancer Institute Early Detection Research Network, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Burroughs Welcome Foundation; he is also an American Cancer Society research professor and Taubman Scholar.
About the U-M Comprehensive Cancer Center:
The U-M Comprehensive Cancer Center is one of only 40 U.S. centers to earn the National Cancer Institute's "Comprehensive" designation by meeting strict guidelines for: Extensive, interactive and innovative clinical and laboratory research; participation in NCI testing of new therapies; significant cancer prevention and control research; provision of patient education, community service and outreach as well as training for health professionals.
The Cancer Center is also a founding member of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, a consortium of 21 premiere cancer centers formed to develop national guidelines to ensure consistent, high-quality and cost-effective cancer care.
U-M Cancer AnswerLine, 800-865-1125
Clinical trials at U-M, www.UMClinicalStudies.org
Tweet: @UMHealthSystem
Facebook: www.facebook.com/UniversityofMichiganComprehensiveCancerCenter
Flickr: www.flickr.com/umhealthsystem
YouTube: www.youtube.com/umhealthsystem
Web: www.UofMHealth.org | www.mcancer.org
RSS: www.uofmhealth.org/news/rss
END
Winter is great; who doesn't love wrapping up warm, sipping hot cocoa, making snowmen and - of course - Christmas? However, for those heading abroad and swapping frosty paths for sun-kissed beaches, buying your holiday clothes at this time of year can be more daunting than Christmas dinner with the in-laws! Help is at hand, as online fashion retailer Style-Passport have launched their winter sun collection.
Boasting beautiful bikinis, stunning sarongs and contemporary kaftans (amongst other things), Style-Passport's winter sun range is perfect for picking up the beach ...
Researchers have highlighted the serious health risks associated with the diets of indigenous people by linking the accumulation of mercury in their primary food source to a decrease in the power of antioxidants.
Published today, 21 November, in IOP Publishing's journal Environmental Research Letters, the study used Alaskan huskies to demonstrate the risk posed by contaminants, such as mercury, in the subsistence diets that both indigenous people and huskies live on.
Huskies are an ideal model for humans as they are exposed to the same environmental hazards and have ...
Climate change effect on release of CO2 from peat far greater than assumed
Drought causes peat to release far more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than has previously been realised.
Much of the world's peatlands lie in regions predicted to experience increased frequency and severity of drought as a result of climate change- leading to the peat drying out and releasing vast stores of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere. It's the very wetness of the peat that has kept the air out, locking in centuries of carbon dioxide that would normally be released from the ...
Treatment with dexpramipexole – a novel drug believed to prevent dysfunction of mitochondria, the subcellular structures that provide most of a cell's energy – appears to slow symptom progression in the neurodegenerative disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Promising results of a phase 2 trial of dexpramipexole are receiving advance online publication in Nature Medicine. Some preliminary results of the study were presented at the 2009 International Symposium on ALS/MND and the 2010 American Academy of Neurology annual meeting.
"Today there are only two FDA-approved ...
Athens, Ga. – Materials that emit visible light after being exposed to sunlight are commonplace and can be found in everything from emergency signage to glow-in-the-dark stickers. But until now, scientists have had little success creating materials that emit light in the near-infrared range, a portion of the spectrum that only can be seen with the aid of night vision devices.
In a paper just published in the early online edition of the journal Nature Materials, however, University of Georgia scientists describe a new material that emits a long-lasting, near-infrared glow ...
The more often older married individuals engage in sexual activity, the more likely they are to be happy with both their lives and marriages, according to new research presented in Boston at The Gerontological Society of America's (GSA) 64th Annual Scientific Meeting.
This finding is based on the 2004� General Social Surveys, a public opinion poll conducted on a nationally representative sample of non-institutionalized English and Spanish-speaking person 18 years of age or older living in the U.S. The data analysis was conducted by Adrienne Jackson, PT, PhD, MPA, ...
A new study in Nature Medicine describes how different types of immune system T-cells alternately discourage and encourage stem cells to regrow bone and tissue, bringing into sharp focus the importance of the transplant recipient's immune system in stem cell regeneration.
The study, conducted at the Center for Craniofacial Molecular Biology at the Ostrow School of Dentistry of USC, examined how mice with genetic bone defects responded to infusions of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells, or BMMSC.
Under normal conditions, the mice's T-cells produced an inflammatory response ...
I have previously written about the potentially devastating consequences of the creation of the New York Medical Indemnity Fund in limiting access to care for children who have suffered severe brain disabilities as a result of proven medical malpractice at the time of their birth. (See: New York's Death Panel Lottery for Children Injured by Medical Malpractice at Birth; New York State To Ration Care to Brain Injured Victims of Obstetric Malpractice; Challenging the New York Medical Indemnity Fund).
In summary even though the malpractice causing an injury has been established ...
We will only achieve the target of limiting global warming to safe levels if carbon dioxide emissions begin to fall within the next two decades and eventually decrease to zero. That is the stark message from research by an international team of scientists, led by the University of Exeter, published today (20 November) in the journal Nature Climate Change.
The research focuses on the scale of carbon emission reduction needed to keep future global warming at no more than two degrees Celsius over average temperatures prior to the Industrial Revolution. This target is now ...
Caenorhabditis are usually thought of as soil nematodes, happily living in compost heaps. The famous (scientifically speaking) Caenorhabditis elegans has provided a wealth of information about developmental processes and cell death. These tiny worms have been at the forefront of three Nobel prizes and have even been sent into space! However all other known Caenorhabditis species are as distantly related to C. elegans as mouse is to man. New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology looked at the relationship between the ten known ...
