RNA Helps Suppressing the Spread of Aggressive Breast Cancer

According to researchers at Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, a low cellular level of a tiny fragment of RNA appears to increase the spread of breast cancer. Their study was published in the June 12 issue of Cell, and describes the potential role of microRNas in predicting the likelihood of metastasis and in helping determine patient prognoses.

Scott Valastyan, a graduate student in Whitehead Member Robert Weinberg’s laboratory, screened patient breast cancer samples for microRNAs with potential roles in metastasis. The samples were either metastatic cancer or non-metastatic cancer and the levels o microRNa differed depending on this. Therefore, if the samples were non-metastatic, the cancer cells retained high levels of the microRNA. On the contrary, if they were metastatic, the cancer cells came to possess lower levels of microRNA miR-31.

After concluding all his tests, Valastyan said that “This microRNA seems to be quite unique, in that it seems to provide some prognostic utility across these existing subclassifications [of cancers]”. Therefore, miR-31 could be a useful target for cancer therapy and might prove to be very important in altering the clinical progression of a tumor or causing it to revert to a more benign state, according to Weinberg, who is also a professor of biology at MIT.

This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), MIT Ludwig Center for Molecular Oncology, U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), Breast Cancer Research Foundation, Harvard Breast Cancer Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPORE), and a DoD Breast Cancer Research Program (BCRP) Idea Award.4. Department of Pathology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA 02115, USA.