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Media Contact
Ruth Francis
Head of Communication, BioMed Central
Tel: +44 20 3192 2737
Mobile: +44 7825 287 546
E-mail: [email protected]
Leukaemia drug could help treat breast cancer
21/08/13
A drug currently used to treat leukaemia might also help prevent breast cancer from
spreading to other parts of the body, suggests an animal study in the open-access
journal Breast Cancer Research. The discovery could also pave the way for improved
early diagnostics.
Peter Storz and colleagues tested the drug, decitabine, in a mouse model of breast
cancer where it shrank the primary breast tumour and minimised metastasis to the
animals’ lungs. Mice treated with drug had very few or no metastases in their lungs,
and those that were found were around 40 times smaller than those observed in
untreated control animals. Decitabine, or drugs that work in a similar way, could be
used to help manage breast cancer, the authors say, but human studies will be
needed.
The drug works by targeting a particular gene, called PRKD1. Normally, the gene is
switched on, but in invasive breast cancer, gene-inactivating molecules called methyl
groups bind to the DNA next to the gene, switching it off. Decitabine prevents these
methyl groups from binding to DNA.
Treatment with the drug reduced methylation levels around the PRKD1 gene. As a
result, the gene was switched back on, and was able to start churning out protein as
normal.
The authors also studied methylation levels in human breast cancer tissues with
varying degrees of invasiveness. Methylation levels correlated with the cancer’s
potential to spread. The finding could, the authors say, be used to help generate a
new diagnostic test that could predict how likely breast cancer is to metastasize.
Decitabine is one of a handful of FDA-approved cancer drugs that work via
epigenetics, influencing the structure and form of DNA to affect gene expression,
without altering the DNA sequence itself. Alongside genetic changes, epigenetic
differences are now known to play a role in many different types of tumour,
including prostate and cervical cancer. Decitabine is currently licensed for the
treatment of acute myeloid leukaemia, a cancer of white blood cells.
- ENDS Media Contact
Ruth Francis
Head of Communication, BioMed Central
Tel: +44 20 3192 2737
Mobile: +44 7825 287 546
E-mail: [email protected]
Notes to Editors
1. Pharmacologic reversion of epigenetic silencing of the PRKD1 promoter blocks breast tumor cell invasion
and metastasis
Sahra Borges, Heike Döppler, Edith A Perez, Cathy A Andorfer, Zhifu Sun, Panos Z Anastasiadis, E Aubrey
Thompson, Xochiquetzal J Geiger and Peter Storz
Breast Cancer Research 2013 (in press)
During embargo, article available here
After embargo, article available at journal website
Please name the journal in any story you write. If you are writing for the web, please link to the article.
All articles are available free of charge, according to BioMed Central’s open access policy.
2. Breast Cancer Research is an international, peer-reviewed online journal, publishing original research,
reviews, commentaries and reports. Research articles of exceptional interest are published in all areas of
biology and medicine relevant to breast cancer, including normal mammary gland biology, with special
emphasis on the genetic, biochemical, and cellular basis of breast cancer. In addition, the journal
publishes clinical studies with a biological basis, including Phase I and Phase II trials.
3. BioMed Central (http://www.biomedcentral.com/) is an STM (Science, Technology and Medicine)
publisher which has pioneered the open access publishing model. All peer-reviewed research articles
published by BioMed Central are made immediately and freely accessible online, and are licensed to allow
redistribution and reuse. BioMed Central is part of Springer Science+Business Media, a leading global
publisher in the STM sector. @BioMedCentral