UT Southwestern Medical Center scientists have identified a strong link between the most aggressive type of breast cancer and a gene that regulates the body\u2019s natural cellular recycling process, called autophagy.<\/p>\n
Based on analysis of two large breast cancer databases, reduced activity of an autophagy gene, beclin 1, was related to both a higher incidence of triple-negative breast cancer and a poorer prognosis for breast cancer patients.<\/p>\n
The study is the first to document a correlation between beclin 1 and triple-negative human breast cancer and validates research in mouse models.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have potentially identified a new pathway to be targeted in the most aggressive, difficult-to-treat form of breast cancer,\u201d said Dr. Beth Levine, Director of the Center for Autophagy Research and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator at UT Southwestern. \u201cThese data suggest that decreased beclin 1 activity contributes to breast cancer and poor survival outcomes. As a result, therapies that increase beclin 1 activity in breast cancer may be beneficial.\u201d<\/p>\n
Triple-negative breast cancer \u2013 which accounts for 10 to 20 percent of breast cancer \u2013 is called such because the cancer\u2019s cells lack oestrogen and progesterone receptors and also do not have an excess of the human growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) protein on their surfaces. Chemotherapy, the standard treatment, has been limited in its effectiveness against triple-negative breast cancer.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith low beclin 1 expression, you have up to a 35-fold higher risk of having triple-negative breast cancer. That\u2019s really strong,\u201d said Dr. Levine, who holds the Charles Cameron Sprague Distinguished Chair in Biomedical Science and is co-senior author of the study with Dr. Yang Xie, Associate Professor of Clinical Science.<\/p>\n
UT Southwestern researchers analysed 3,057 breast cancer cases for levels of expression of beclin 1 and BRCA1, a nearby gene that is associated with inherited breast cancer. The data came from The Cancer Genome Project in the United States (1,067 cases) and the Molecular Taxonomy of Breast Cancer International Symposium in the United Kingdom and Canada (1,992 cases).<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know that about 35 percent of all breast cancers are missing copies of both the beclin 1 and BRCA1 genes,\u201d said Dr. Levine. \u201cTo find out which of the two genes is important, we looked at the levels of expressions of both genes and how they related to different clinical features of breast cancer. Strong associations were seen between low expression of beclin 1, but not BRCA1, and adverse clinical features.\u201d<\/p>\n
Along with the 35-fold higher risk of having triple-negative breast cancer, the findings showed low levels of beclin 1 activity also correlated with worse outcomes.<\/p>\n
\u201cPatients with breast cancer and low beclin 1 expression had a 67 percent increase in the risk of dying from breast cancer compared with patients who had higher levels of beclin 1 expression,\u201d Dr. Xie said.<\/p>\n
Increasing beclin 1 activity could, therefore, become a new therapy for breast cancer patients, especially those with the triple-negative type. Several approved drugs that happen to increase beclin 1 activity are already used for other types of cancer. They included four classes of drugs: inhibitors of either beclin 1\/BCL-2 binding, protein kinase B (AKT), epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), or HER2.\nUT Southwestern Medical Center<\/link>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
UT Southwestern Medical Center scientists have identified a strong link between the most aggressive type of breast cancer and a gene that regulates the body\u2019s natural cellular recycling process, called autophagy. Based on analysis of two large breast cancer databases, reduced activity of an autophagy gene, beclin 1, was related to both a higher incidence […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-e-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clinlabint.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1474"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clinlabint.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clinlabint.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clinlabint.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clinlabint.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/clinlabint.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1474\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clinlabint.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clinlabint.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clinlabint.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}