Breast cancer: micro-RNA can prevent metastasis

Thursday, 10 January 2008

New York - US researchers have breast cancer cells molecules discovered that the
formation of metastases in the lung and bone suppress. Whether the finding in
Nature (2008, 451: 147-152) improved diagnostics, or even lead to new therapeutic
approaches, it is too soon to foresee.

The current metastasis is not a random knowledge byproduct of the growth of cancer,
in which cells from the surface of cancer to blood and lymph away to another place to
hang. The formation of metastases is a specific performance of the tumor, the cells
are able to produce cell from the federation to solve in order for a hämatogenen or
lymphogenen actively spread into tissue when they Daughter Tumors

In search of the regulators of this metastasis, the researchers in recent years on a

series of micro-RNAs encountered. These are small RNA molecules, which in tiny
quantities in the cell nucleus are there but large effects on the activity of specific
genes. Some of these molecules appear in the normal cell the formation of
metastases.

This includes miR-126 and miR-335. Joan Massagué from Memorial Sloan-Kettering
Cancer Center in New York City and colleagues have found that the two micro-RNAs
lost if the ability of cancer metastasis to acquire. Was miR-126 re-integrated into the
cell, it slowed tumor growth, while miR-335's ability to metastasis suppressed.

That these molecular processes of clinical significance, the study shows archived
tissue samples from breast cancer patients. Were the micro-RNA was detected in the
samples, improved long-term survival chances of patients. This indicates a possible
prognostic importance of micro-RNA, whose clinical value is still to show prospective
cohorts.

The researchers have also found out how miR-335 suppresses the metastasis: About
SOX4 transcription factor is the tendency to suppress metastasis, whereas the
migration of tumor cells in tissues with the formation of tenascin-C connection. From
the immediate clarification of metabolic pathways in the long term could be new
paragraphs in the treatment of cancer. /

Quelle: www.aerzteblatt.de