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| Sanchita Bhatnagar, PhD – Photo credit UVAHealth |
These receptors are proteins on the cell surface that allow hormones into the cell. The three most common are estrogen, progesterone and HER-2 or human epidermal growth factor.
Triple negative breast cancer is the most aggressive type of breast cancer and accounts for 40,000 deaths each year in the US.
According to the CDC, One can think of cancer cells having a front door with three locks. When a person is diagnosed with breast cancer, the type of receptors the tumor has guides doctors to the type of therapy that may be most effective. Triple-negative breast cancer, however, has none of these receptors and is therefore most resistant to treatment.
Researchers at the University of Virginia Cancer Center have been working to discovery what makes some breast cancers triple-negative, they believe they may have found it. Their findings appear in the Nov. 3, 2020 journal Cancer Research.
When a cell becomes cancerous, it goes through a series of mutations that end up causing the cell to reproduce out of control. Led by Sanchita Bhatnagar, PhD, the UV team have found that breast cells that experience a mutation of the gene TRIM37 not only causes the cancer to spread but makes it resistant to chemotherapy.
Bhatnagar’s team have found a way to insert engineered antibodies into nanoparticles, microscopic balls of fat, that are able to penetrate the cancer cells where they release the cancer-killing antibodies. In addition, the nanoparticles selectively target cells with the mutated TRIM37 gene, and do not attach to healthy cells.
While they have shown their approach works in mice, it will take a lot more research to overcome a number of challenges in humans, specifically, the current nanoparticles they use are eliminated by the liver, so a different nanoparticle, or different delivery method will be needed to ensure enough of them get to the cancerous breast tumors to stop them from growing and spreading.
The study, however, provides an important proof-of-concept that for the first time gives the researchers a potentially effective therapy for triple negative breast cancer.
Source: UVAHealth press release
Researchers at the University of Virginia Cancer Center have been working to discovery what makes some breast cancers triple-negative, they believe they may have found it. Their findings appear in the Nov. 3, 2020 journal Cancer Research.
When a cell becomes cancerous, it goes through a series of mutations that end up causing the cell to reproduce out of control. Led by Sanchita Bhatnagar, PhD, the UV team have found that breast cells that experience a mutation of the gene TRIM37 not only causes the cancer to spread but makes it resistant to chemotherapy.
Bhatnagar’s team have found a way to insert engineered antibodies into nanoparticles, microscopic balls of fat, that are able to penetrate the cancer cells where they release the cancer-killing antibodies. In addition, the nanoparticles selectively target cells with the mutated TRIM37 gene, and do not attach to healthy cells.
While they have shown their approach works in mice, it will take a lot more research to overcome a number of challenges in humans, specifically, the current nanoparticles they use are eliminated by the liver, so a different nanoparticle, or different delivery method will be needed to ensure enough of them get to the cancerous breast tumors to stop them from growing and spreading.
The study, however, provides an important proof-of-concept that for the first time gives the researchers a potentially effective therapy for triple negative breast cancer.
Source: UVAHealth press release
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