A new study reveals that the metadherin gene (MTDH) plays a role in both cancer metastasis and resistance to chemotherapy.
The research, published by Cell Press in the January 6th issue of the journal Cancer Cell , identifies MTDH as a promising therapeutic target for high risk breast cancers.
"Most breast cancer patients resist currently available therapeutic regimens and succumb to recurrent tumors that spread to distant vital organs, such as lung, bone, liver and brain," explains senior study author, Dr. Yibin Kang from the Department of Molecular Biology at Princeton University. "Resistance to chemotherapy and metastasis remain major challenges to curative therapy."
Previous research identified several clinically applicable genetic signatures associated with poor clinical outcomes of breast cancer. However, the signatures differed between independent studies, making it difficult to identify overlapping, functionally relevant genes that might be useful for understanding, and eventually preventing, breast cancer metastasis and chemoresistance.
To further unravel the complex genetic events involved in breast cancer, Dr. Kang and colleagues developed a sophisticated computational algorithm designed to identify genomic changes in an extensive collection of breast tumor samples. The researchers discovered abnormally high copy numbers of chromosomal region 8q22 in more than 30% of breast cancers examined. Patients having this type of breast cancer often had a shorter survival time due to recurrent and metastatic cancers.