Tag Archives: sciencedaily

Triple-negative breast cancer patients should undergo genetic screening — ScienceDaily

“Clinicians need to think hard about screening all their triple-negative patients for mutations because there is a lot of value in learning that information, both in terms of the risk of recurrence to the individual and the risk to family members. In addition, there may be very specific therapeutic benefits of knowing if you have a mutation in a particular gene,” says Fergus Couch, Ph.D., professor of laboratory medicine and pathology at Mayo Clinic and lead author of the study. The study found that almost 15 percent of triple-negative breast cancer patients had deleterious (harmful) mutations in predisposition genes. The vast majority of these mutations appeared in genes involved in the repair of DNA damage, suggesting that the origins of triple-negative breast cancer may be different from other forms of the disease. …

Triple-negative breast cancer patients should undergo genetic screening

“Clinicians need to think hard about screening all their triple-negative patients for mutations because there is a lot of value in learning that information, both in terms of the risk of recurrence to the individual and the risk to family members. In addition, there may be very specific therapeutic benefits of knowing if you have a mutation in a particular gene,” says Fergus Couch, Ph.D., professor of laboratory medicine and pathology at Mayo Clinic and lead author of the study. The study found that almost 15 percent of triple-negative breast cancer patients had deleterious (harmful) mutations in predisposition genes. The vast majority of these mutations appeared in genes involved in the repair of DNA damage, suggesting that the origins of triple-negative breast cancer may be different from other forms of the disease. …

Gene associated with an aggressive breast cancer uncovered

TNBC is deadly because, unlike other types of breast cancers such as estrogen receptor (ER) positive or HER2 amplified breast tumours which have effective targeted therapy, TNBC tumours do not respond to targeted therapy. Breast cancer has many subtypes, each with its own genetic makeup. As such, different subtypes behave differently in invasion and metastasis. …

One-two punch of drugs better than either alone against colorectal cancer

Of course, researchers have extensively targeted these two signaling pathways, designing drugs that turn on or off genes in these pathways, thus interrupting the transmission of cancer-causing signals. Unfortunately, these pathways have proven difficult to drug and also it has been difficult to show the effectiveness of drugs that successfully interrupt the transmission of signals along these pathways. A study by the University of Colorado Cancer Center published in the journal PLoS ONE and concurrent phase I clinical trial is examining a new strategy: targeting both these important cancer-causing pathways simultaneously. “Well, these two pathways are mutated frequently in cancer. …

Gut microbiota influences blood-brain barrier permeability

The blood-brain barrier is a highly selective barrier that prevents unwanted molecules and cells from entering the brain from the bloodstream. In the current study, being published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, the international interdisciplinary research team demonstrates that the transport of molecules across the blood-brain barrier can be modulated by gut microbes — which therefore play an important role in the protection of the brain. The investigators reached this conclusion by comparing the integrity and development of the blood-brain barrier between two groups of mice: the first group was raised in an environment where they were exposed to normal bacteria, and the second (called germ-free mice) was kept in a sterile environment without any bacteria. “We showed that the presence of the maternal gut microbiota during late pregnancy blocked the passage of labeled antibodies from the circulation into the brain parenchyma of the growing fetus,” says first author Dr…