Gene behind breast cancer metastasis identified

Princeton, New Jersey, January 6: In a remarkable medical breakthrough, a team of researchers at Princeton University in collaboration with experts at the Cancerdefine Institute of New Jersey claim to have discovered a gene associated with the poor prognosisdefine of breast cancer.

The gene, called "Metadherin" or MTDH, plays a crucial role in aggravating breast tumors, researchers claim. People carrying the MTDH gene variant are more likely to suffer from aggressive breast cancers, heightening the chances of cancerdefine spread and making them chemoresistant, the researchers report in the Jan. 6 issue of the medical journal Cancer Cell.

While oncology experts suspected that an increased 8q22 copy number was linked to a poor prognosisdefine in breast cancer, the findings confirm the existence. Located in a small region of human chromosome 8 called 8q22, the MTDH gene uphold tumor cells to cling tightly to blood vessels in distant organs, making metastasis (cancer spread) easier. Such adhesive feat weakens powerful chemotherapeutic actions, targeting a wipe out of lethal cells.

The research comes across as the finest answers in the cancer researcher issue. Overjoyed with the findings, Dr. Michael Reiss, paper’s author and Director of the breast cancer research program at the Cancer Institute of New Jersey stated, "Not only has a new metastasis gene been identified, but this also is one of a few such genesdefine for which the exact mode of action has been elucidated."

"That gives us a real shot at developing a drug that will inhibit metastasis," he added.

Coming up in agreement with Reiss, Yibin Kang, study’s lead researcher, an assistant professor of molecular biology at Princeton marked, "Inhibiting this gene in breast cancer patients will simultaneously achieve two important goals -- reduce the chance of recurrence and, at the same, time decrease the risk of metastatic dissemination….Clinically, these are the two major reasons why breast cancer patients die from the disease."

Breast cancer, a malignant tumordefine that develops from cells in the breast, is the second most common type of cancer after lung cancer. While 98.1 percent of the women diagnosed with localized breast tumor (one that is restricted to breasts) live an average five years after diagnosis, only 27.1 percent with metastasis tumor live that long, according to the stats compiled by the National Cancer Institute.

The discovery may further pave way for deeper research. "This is likely to have implications beyond breast cancer" Reiss believes. "Very often these processes are not unique to one cancer type."