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January 15, 2007
New Target For Treatment Of Breast Cancer
Topics: Medical Science News... the data from 295 breast cancer patients (showed) that tumors which produced the highest levels of TACE and the TGF-alpha ligand posed the greatest risk to women.The active ingredient in a drug currently being tested to treat rheumatoid arthritis might also one day serve as an effective means of treating one of the deadliest forms of breast cancer.
Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have demonstrated that inhibiting the activity of the protease enzyme known as TACE (tumor necrosis factor-alpha-converting enzyme) can deprive tumor cells of a key factor needed for their proliferation. TACE is strongly present in a form of breast cancer which responds poorly to current therapies.More at Science Daily ..."We have shown that inhibition of the TACE protease in breast cancer cells blocks the shedding of two critical growth factor proteins and results in an inhibition of a key signaling pathway that controls cell division," said Paraic Kenny, a post-doctoral cell biologist with the research group of Mina Bissell in Berkeley Lab's Life Sciences Division. "Based on analysis of cells grown in three-dimensional cultures, the inhibition of this protease results in the reversion of the malignant phenotype of these breast cancer cells and switches their behavior back to a phenotype very reminiscent of non-malignant breast epithelial cells."
Posted by Richard at January 15, 2007 1:38 PM
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