New breast cancer-promoting gene identified

A team of researchers, at the Genome Institute of Singapore, has identified a new gene that seems to contribute to aggressive breast cancer behavior. As discussed in an accompanying commentary, by Gordon Mills and colleagues, the data generated in this study provide new insight into cellular processes underlying tumor cell proliferation and metastasis and identify potential new therapeutic targets. In the study, a new informatics approach was used to analyze microarray expression profiles of primary human breast cancers and the gene RCP was identified as a potential breast cancer–promoting gene. Importantly, this gene is found in a region of the genome frequently amplified in human breast cancer. In vitro analysis indicated that overexpression of RCP protein in normal human breast epithelial cells caused them to acquire tumor cell characteristics and function. Conversely, decreasing expression of RCP protein in human breast cancer cell lines reduced their in vitro tumor cell characteristics and in vivo ability to form tumors and metastasize when transplanted into immunodeficient mice. Further analysis identified some of the molecules affected by RCP overexpression, including the known tumor-promoting protein RAS. These data led the authors to suggest that one mechanism by which RCP promotes breast cancer is likely to be through activation of the RAS signaling pathway and that targeting RCP might provide a way to therapeutically inhibit this known tumor-promoting pathway.

Source: Journal of Clinical Investigation