A key protein potentially involved in regulating breast cancer progression has been identified by researchers at Clarkson University in Potsdam, N.Y. Led by professor Costel Darie, the team worked to identify the binding partner of Tumor Differentiating Factor (TDF), a pituitary hormone that had previously been shown to reduce cancer progression in breast cancer cells.
Earlier studies had shown that breast cancer cells treated with TDF lost their cancerous characteristics and began acting like normal mammary cells, suggesting that TDF had tumor-suppressing capabilities. However, how TDF acted remained unclear, leading Darie’s group to initiate a search for a cellular receptor in cancer cells that might bind TDF and transmit its anti-tumorigenic cues.
Darie’s group found that a receptor, labeled TDF-R, was found exclusively in breast, but not other cancer, cells, suggesting a level of specificity that agrees with previous reports of the efficacy of TDF. This result, which is being reported in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, has substantial potential implications for developing new therapies for treating breast cancers known to be unresponsive to standard steroid hormone-based therapies, such as tamoxifen treatment.
Science Brief thanks to EurekAlert.
Read more here:
Researchers identify possible receptor for key breast cancer regulator
Net News Publisher for Science News
