Breast Cancer Protein Scrutinized

In a breakthrough that could see the development of new diagnosis and treatment methods for breast cancer, researchers managed to study in depth a protein produced by the breast cancer susceptibility gene known as BRCA2.

The advancements are of extreme importance, given that breast cancer is widespread, and that it is also transmissible within families.

This means that women whose mothers developed the condition are at high risk of suffering from it as well, e! Science News reports. 

The new study was conducted by investigators at the University of California in Davis (UCD). The team here managed to take a good look at the gene BRCA 2 and the protein it produces.

Oncology experts have known for a long time that the gene is involved in triggering breast cancer, but its exact mechanisms of action have thus far remained a mystery.

With the discovery and analysis of the new protein, the UCD team now knows the role that the oncogene plays in DNA repair Details of the new research appear in the August 22 issue of the esteemed scientific journal Nature.

Additionally, the paper was also published in the journal Nature Structural and Molecular Biology.

“Having the purified protein makes possible far more detailed studies of how it works,” says of the recent discovery Stephen Kowalczykowski, the senior author of the study.

The expert is a distinguished professor of microbiology in the UCD College of Biological Sciences, and also a member of the UCD Cancer Center.

At the same time Kowalczykowski's group was purifying the protein from human cells, a team led by UCD Department of Microbiology professor Wolf-Dietrich Heyer was manufacturing the same proteins in yeast cultures.

“It's nice to be able to compare the two and see no disagreements between the results,” Heyer says. He is the leader of the molecular oncology program at the UCD Cancer Center.

“We're just starting to scratch the surface and understand more of the mechanisms and interaction with other factors,” Kowalczykowski says of the BRCA2 protein.

Experts now want to use the new knowledge to develop a series of treatments aimed at the terrible disease, which affects millions around the world.