Gene Studies Offer Insights Into Cancer

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While it was known that a number of genes help spread cancer, these researchers found how four genes cooperate to make new blood vessels in the cancer tumor, release cancer cells into the bloodstream and help these cells get into the lungs.

The finding helps explain how breast cancer metastases, or spreads, to other organs in the body. These genes could become targets for treatment to help stop breast cancer from spreading, an often deadly development, the researchers said.

Two of these potential gene targets are the cyclooxygenase cox-2 gene and the epidermal growth factor receptor gene (EGFR).

To show that these genes were actually involved in cancer metastasis, Massague's group treated breast cancer cells with the cancer drug cetuximab and the pain medication Celebrex, a cox-2 inhibitor, and found that the rate of growth of the tumor was reduced and metastasis halted.

One expert thinks that both studies could provide the basis for developing new and more effective cancer treatments.

"These are encouraging studies," said Michael Melner, a scientific program director at the American Cancer Society. "There is potential for treatments in the future that might dramatically reduce the amount of these chemotherapeutic drugs that need to be applied in order for them to be effective."

These studies could also lead to treatments that attack the way cancer cells work, Melner said. "By identifying these genes in different types of cancers, you are identifying the sensitive points in the cancer and that might give you further indication of new drugs that could be applied to those particular mechanisms," he said.

More information

For more information on gene therapy, visit the American Cancer Society.