"Twist" Cancer-Causing Protein Strongly Tied To Hormone Resistance In Breast Cancer

This is potentially exciting news for those whose ER+ cancer becomes resistant to therapy.

"In dozens of experiments in mice and in human cancer cells, a team of Johns Hopkins scientists has closely tied production of a cancer-causing protein called TWIST to the development of estrogen resistance in women with breast cancer. Because estrogen fuels much breast cancer growth, such resistance in which cancers go from estrogen positive to estrogen negative status can sabotage anticancer drugs that work to block estrogen and prevent disease recurrence after surgery. Estrogen resistance develops in over half of women taking estrogen-blocking medications, such as tamoxifen, and exists from the start in many other women....

'Our study results are particularly exciting because we went beyond establishing an association to identifying several new routes for potentially controlling and possibly reversing estrogen resistance in breast cancer,' says lead study investigator and breast cancer biologist Farhad Vesuna, Ph.D., an instructor at Johns Hopkins."

By decreasing the Twist protein, the researchers were able to overcome some resistance the drugs the tumor had once been developed resistance to again with improved results.

"Almost 40 percent of cells tested reverted from being estrogen receptor negative to estrogen receptor positive, and some 30 percent of these cell receptors became tamoxifen sensitive, allowing the drug to target the cancerous cells."

Cancer-Causing Protein Strongly Tied To Hormone Resistance In Breast Cancer

http://www.medilexicon.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=237272