New Discovery Could Lead to Prevention Techniques Against Breast Cancer

The discovery was made recently by scientists from Columbia University and Sweden's Lund University, according to Consumer Affairs.

For the last decade, scientist had connected the mutation of a gene known as BRCA1 to breast cancer, but did not understand how it operated. Now, researches say they have found the answer.

Ramon parsons, M.D., Ph.D., Avon Foundation Professor of Medicine and Pathology at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, and colleague Ake Borg, Ph.D., professor of oncology at Lund University, just discovered that once mutated, the BRCA1 gene sets out to destroy PTEN, an important gene in the fight against tumor cells.

"We have been stymied by our limited resources to treat these cancers, which are associated with very poor prognoses," Parsons said. "Now that we know that PTEN is involved, we finally have a target for therapy for these cancers." The discovery, say researchers, will eventually lead to new techniques in the struggle against breast cancer.

Breast cancer is the most widespread melanoma affecting women in the United States and Europe. According to the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania. Close to 200,000 cases of breast cancer were diagnosed in the states in 2001, and is the second leading cause of cancer death in American women after lung cancer.

Breast cancer develops after cells in that area of the body begin to grow out of control and attack surrounding tissue or spread throughout the body. 1 in 8 women have a chance to develop breast cancer in their lifetimes, but their mortality rate is 1 in 28 at this point, according to the Abramson Center.

The new discovery could lead to even more findings and hence, a reduction in those numbers. Scientists believe that PTEN is not the only gene targeted by BRCA1. "By using the same techniques we used to find gross chromosomal rearrangements in PTEN, we hope to start identifying additional mutated genes involved in the development of breast cancer," said Parsons. He estimates that close to half of breast cancer cases involving BRCA1 could be caused by a mutated PTEN.

Now that researches understand how BRCA1 behaves and what is actually doing, researchers plan to expand on their successful research to investigate its cousin: BRCA2, another gene involved in the developing of breast cancer.

"BRCA2 has a role downstream in the same DNA double strand break repair pathway as BRCA1, but tumors from BRCA2 mutation carriers have a quite different phenotype compared to BRCA1 tumors, less often involving PTEN loss. However, like BRCA1, BRCA2 tumors have an instable genome with massive chromosomal aberrations, suggesting that other genes may be targeted," says Dr. Borg.