October 14, 2014
Lin Mei identifies a new treatment target for aggressive breast cancer
By Medical Xpress
One of the first-known oncogenes has a protein partner that helps breast cancer proliferate and when it's blocked, so is the cancer, scientists report.
The gene ErbB2, commonly called HER2, is highly expressed in about 25 percent of breast cancers. Scientists have now found the protein Erbin, thought to be an anti-tumor factor, also is highly expressed in these cancers and essential to ErbB2's support of breast cancer.
When scientists interfere with the interaction between the two in mice, it inhibits tumor development and the usual spread to the lungs, according to an international team reporting in the journal PNAS. The team documented the overexpression of both in 171 cases of mostly aggressive human breast cancer as well.
The findings point toward a new therapeutic target for aggressive breast cancer and potentially an adjunct for women who become resistant to Herceptin, or trastuzumab, the drug commonly given to ErbB2-positive patients, said Dr. Lin Mei, corresponding author, GRA Eminent Scholar, and Chairman of the Department of Neuroscience and Regenerative Medicine at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Regents University. Additionally, Erbin could be a diagnostic biomarker that physicians look for in breast tissue biopsies, Mei said.
