Estrogen a more powerful breast cancer culprit than we realized
In what may turn out to be a long-missing piece in the puzzle of breast cancer, Harvard Medical School researchers have identified the molecular sparkplug that ignites cases of the disease currently unexplained by the classical model of breast-cancer development. A report on the team’s work is published May 17 in Nature. “We have identified what we believe is the original molecular trigger that initiates a cascade culminating in breast tumor development in a subset of breast cancers that are driven by estrogen,” said study senior investigator Peter Park, professor of Biomedical Informatics in the Blavatnik Institute at HMS. The researchers said as many as one-third of breast cancer cases may arise through the newly identified mechanism. The study also shows that the sex hormone estrogen is the culprit behind this molecular dysfunction because it directly alters a cell’s DNA. Most, though not all, breast cancers are fueled by hormonal fluctuations. The prevailing view of estrogen’s role in...