A perennial puzzle to cancer researchers is why some tumors spread to other parts of the body, or metastasize, while others do not. Because most cancer deaths result from metastasis, the answer to this question could help doctors predict metastatic disease and help choose the optimal treatment. Now researchers have taken a small step in this direction: they have deciphered a "signature" gene, which in many tumor samples, seems to predict whether a cancer spreads
The tumor cells metastasize once that they acquire certain genetic. mutations. These could make a more robust cell in a foreign environment - say, when a cell moves within the bone - or more able to escape the primary tumor survive and all rushed into the bloodstream. But the distinction between cancer cells and the garden-variety smarter metastatic type has been difficult.
gene expression In a recent attempt, oncologist Todd Golub of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Massachusetts, and colleagues collected profiles taken from public databases, from 76 tumors. Sixty-four were of a primary site (though the team members did not know if these cancers had later metastasized), and 12 were metastases. Because the primary and metastatic samples are not the same people, and because the samples were taken from a mishmash of cancer (lung, breast, prostate, colorectal, uterus and the ovary), Golub did not really expect to see something interesting.
to the researchers' surprise, they found distinct patterns of expression of the 17 genes. They were particularly intrigued to see that some primary tumors shared a pattern of expression with metastatic ones. These tumors might be those who would spread? The group turned to several profiles: 78 breast cancer, 62 lung cancer, and 21 samples of prostate cancer, all primary tumors and tracking information to whether they had metastasized. Although a poor result was possible without the gene expression profile, patients with the genetic signature have been found to survive for less time than those who do not have it, they wrote in the online edition of the December 9 of Nature Genetics .
"This study has provided solid evidence that the molecular signature of metastasis is high on the primary tumor," said Mary Hendrix, a cancer researcher at the University of Iowa in Iowa .. But City Hendrix points out that the study should be repeated with a larger sample also, she said, it would be nice to know the function of 17 genes - some of which had been previously linked to cancer. - Because this could help refine tumor treatments
Related Sites
the homepage Metastasis research Society
the homepage of Todd Golub
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