CNRS researchers were able to reduce the number of metastases in mice suffering from breast cancer by inhibiting the protein responsible for their spread.
- A CNRS team has just made a discovery that could revolutionize the fight against aggressive breast cancers, refractory to conventional treatments, which develop into metastases.
- Researchers have identified a protein, SMYD2, which is responsible for the spread of metastatic cancer cells. By chemically blocking its activity in mice suffering from mammary cancer, they demonstrated a correlation between the inhibition of SMYD2 and the total absence of the appearance of metastasis.
- It is “a promising first step towards the development of an early therapy preventing the development of metastases in breast cancer”, according to them.
“A promising first step.” A team from the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) has just made a discovery that could revolutionize the fight against aggressive breast cancers, refractory to conventional treatments, which develop into metastases. The researchers, whose work will appear in the journal Cell Discoveryhave in fact identified a protein which is at the origin of the spread of cancer cells.
Fewer metastases in mice with breast cancer
Particularly abundant in breast cancers, the SMYD2 protein “diverts to the advantage of cancer cells the activity of another protein, BCAR3, known to be partly responsible for the adhesion and migratory capacity of cells”, explains the CNRS in a communicated. Thus, the development of metastatic cells and their ability to migrate and invade their environment “requires the presence, or at least stimulation, of SMYD2”. Without this protein, a priori no metastases.
Following this lead, the researchers then chemically inhibited the activity of SMYD2 in mice suffering from mammary cancer still at the primary stage, and compared the evolution of the disease with untreated rodents. The study thus highlighted “a correlation between the inhibition of SMYD2, the blocking of its action on BCAR3 and the total absence of the appearance of metastasis”. “We saw up to ten times fewer metastases developing in the organs around breast cancer in these mice”underlines Nicolas Reynoird, CNRS researcher who participated in the work, at the microphone of Europe 1.
Towards early therapy against metastases in breast cancer
It is “a promising first step towards the development of an early therapy preventing the development of metastases in breast cancer”, rejoiced the CNRS team. Such preventive treatment would in fact give caregivers more time to identify and implement effective therapy against the primary tumor, or find an alternative for refractory tumors.
One in eight women develop breast cancer during their lifetime, with a particularly increased risk between the ages of 50 and 74. When it is detected early, it is nevertheless cured in nine out of ten cases. “In general, the mortality rate is decreasing and the prognosis is good but there are still 15 to 20% of women who are waiting for a therapeutic solution because their disease becomes metastatic”, specifies the Institut Curie. To date, 20% of breast cancers eventually develop metastases.
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