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Gene therapy techniques are now being eyed as a possible solution in the prevention of breast cancer, which is one of the leading cause of cancer-related deaths among women.
Gene therapy techniques are making good headway
In a study recently published in the journal Nature Communications, researchers from the Medical Engineering and Sciences (IMES) at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Tel Aviv University in Israel, may have found a new gene therapy method that could prevent the metastasis of breast tumours into full-blown cancer.
The researchers believe that they may have found evidence by using microRNA’s to stop metastasis from occurring. MicroRNA’s are minute molecules of non-coding RNA responsible for regulating gene expression.
Research lead Natalie Artzi, who is also a professor and research scientist from MIT and also an assistant professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, said that they hope the new therapy be used together with chemotherapy to treat the early stages of breast cancer.
“The idea is that if the cancer is diagnosed early enough, then in addition to treating the primary tumour [with chemotherapy], one could also treat with specific microRNAs, in order to prevent the spread of cancer cells that cause metastasis,” says Artzi.
Artzi is working in collaboration with Noam Shomron, assistant professor of medicine at Tel Aviv University.
Attacking the cells responsible for breast cancer
Separate studies have previously discovered that the function of the microRNA in regulating gene expression shows evidence that it can prevent the spread of deadly cancer cells.
Recent results from a different study conducted by Shomron found that the presence of genetic variants called single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were found to disrupt this preventive function of the molecules and increases the risk of cancer.
The SNPs variants disruption of the gene expression also controls a protein called Palladin. Palladin is believed to play a major role in the development of breast cancer cells and how it attacks healthy cells,
“Previous research had discussed the role of Palladin in controlling migration and invasion (of cancer cells), but no one had tried to use microRNAs to silence those specific targets and prevent metastasis,” Artzi says. “In this way we were able to pinpoint the critical role of these microRNAs in stopping the spread of breast cancer.”
Artzi said they are excited about this discovery and hope that with clinical trials to push through, it may still take a while before they get to see how it fares in human trials and hope it would subsequently become a success.
The post New Gene Therapy Techniques May Stop Breast Cancer appeared first on NUTRITION CLUB CANADA.
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