Researchers find possible drug target for breast cancer
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Patients who need to fight breast cancer on a budget may relieve their bankbooks if they buy Canadian Tamoxifen at a fraction of what it costs in the U.S. Research is ongoing to find different pharmaceutical approaches to tackling this disease. A new study from the Duke University Medical Center found a protein that can serve as a therapeutic target for cases of breast cancer that aren't driven by sex hormones.
Most cases of breast cancer grow in the presence of estrogen, prompting doctors to treat these patients with hormone blocking therapy. However, about a quarter of cases do not rely on estrogen, but the activity of a protein known as HER2. Though there are drugs that aim at HER2, tumors may become resistant to the medication, according to researchers.
A team of scientists looking for a new target in breast cancer therapy studied the genes of 800 breast tumors and found the protein estrogen-related receptor alpha (ERRa) to be active in non-estrogen-dependent breast cancer, as reported in the journal Cancer Cell.
ERRa can be activated by different cell messages controlled by HER2 and another protein called IGF-1R. However, the scientists discovered that an experimental drug that shuts down ERRa directly could stop a tumor from growing. This same effect may also be helpful in other types of cancer, the researchers said. Further research can lead to new drugs that affect ERRa.
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