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NEW YORK — A team of US researchers has developed a new genetic model for breast cancer that could help scientists better understand why and where cancer metastasises.
Professor Eran Andrechek from Michigan State University in the US has been researching the E2F5 gene and its role in the development of breast cancer.
Based on findings from Andrechek’s lab, the loss of E2F5 results in altered regulation of Cyclin D1, a protein linked to metastatic breast tumours after long latency.
The study, published in the journal Oncogene, also demonstrated that the removal of E2F5 in the mammary gland leads to tumour formation.
As scientists better understand how genes impact breast cancer, they could also learn why cancers metastasise and where cancers are likely to spread.
According to Andrechek, while a genetically engineered mouse model can be artificially tweaked through injection to force cancer cells to go to organs like the liver or brain, his lab’s newly generated mouse model makes that unnecessary.
“One of the reasons that we’re really excited about this model is that it does something that most genetically engineered mouse models have not done in the past,” Andrechek said.
According to Andrechek, breast cancer most often spreads to the lymph nodes, bones or liver.
Andrechek’s lab uses bioinformatics (using computer technology to capture and interpret biological data) along with genetic models to examine the mechanisms involved in the development and progression of breast cancer.
Its research focuses on understanding mammary tumour development and uses several methods ranging from animal models to computational analysis of gene expression data.
While breast cancer can happen at any age, most women are in their 60s or 70s when they are first diagnosed with the disease.
Andrechek’s research is physiologically relevant since it takes about two years for the mice to develop a tumour, which means the mice are getting breast cancer at an equivalent age as women.