New! Sign up for our free email newsletter.
Science News
from research organizations

Cancer researchers show why genetic risks promote breast cancer

Date:
September 24, 2012
Source:
University Health Network (UHN)
Summary:
Cancer researchers studying 44 known genetic variants associated with breast cancer have found the way to identify why they increase cancer risk, opening the door to future therapeutic applications based on personalized medicine.
Share:
FULL STORY

Cancer researchers studying 44 known genetic variants associated with breast cancer have found the way to identify why they increase cancer risk, opening the door to future therapeutic applications based on personalized medicine.

The findings, published online September 24 ahead of print in Nature Genetics, fill a gap that will expand the reach of genetic profiling beyond merely screening, says principal investigator Dr. Mathieu Lupien, a scientist at Ontario Cancer Institute, the research arm of the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre at University Health Network. Dr. Lupien, who specializes in epigenetics in cancer, is also an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto.

"Our work has identified the mechanisms altered by genetic risk variants in regions believed for a long time to be 'junk DNA'; that is, DNA outside the genes with no known function -- until now. This moves us one step closer to translating genetic profiling into patient care and advancing personalized cancer medicine," says Dr. Lupien.

"We discovered that genetic variants promoting breast cancer are found in elements with a regulatory role that modulate genes expression," he says. The team discovered the changes affecting the activity of two well known drivers of breast cancer -- the estrogen receptor ESR1 and the transcription factor FOXA1 -- that work together in breast cancer cells.

Dr. Lupien and co-investigator Dr. Jason Moore, a computational biologist at Dartmouth Medical School in Lebanon, New Hampshire, developed a methodology that identified the target of genetic predisposition by merging existing maps of the genome -- one cataloguing predisposition to breast cancer and others annotating the functional components from breast cancer cells.

"The pattern emerged revealing why genetic variants can promote breast cancer" says Dr. Lupien. "The beauty is that our methodology can be applied to any disease with known genetic predispositions. We anticipate it will be of broad benefit to other research."

The study was funded by the National Institutes for Health, the American Cancer Society, the National Cancer Institute and The Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation.


Story Source:

Materials provided by University Health Network (UHN). Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


Journal Reference:

  1. Richard Cowper-Sal·lari, Xiaoyang Zhang, Jason B Wright, Swneke D Bailey, Michael D Cole, Jerome Eeckhoute, Jason H Moore, Mathieu Lupien. Breast cancer risk–associated SNPs modulate the affinity of chromatin for FOXA1 and alter gene expression. Nature Genetics, 2012; DOI: 10.1038/NG.2416

Cite This Page:

University Health Network (UHN). "Cancer researchers show why genetic risks promote breast cancer." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 24 September 2012. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120924142434.htm>.
University Health Network (UHN). (2012, September 24). Cancer researchers show why genetic risks promote breast cancer. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 28, 2024 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120924142434.htm
University Health Network (UHN). "Cancer researchers show why genetic risks promote breast cancer." ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120924142434.htm (accessed March 28, 2024).

Explore More

from ScienceDaily

RELATED STORIES