How breast cancer cells evade therapeutic attacks
Tumour cells depend upon oestrogens to survive and proliferate in about 70% of all breast cancer cases. The most frequently used treatment to fight this variety of tumours relies on anti-oestrogens such as tamoxifen. However, resistance to this type of therapy develops in more than 30% of the patients. Understanding the mechanisms involved in the appearance of resistance to tamoxifen is thus essential to develop new therapeutic approaches. The research done by the team of Didier Picard, professor at the University of Geneva (UNIGE), provides key answers in the 1st of April 2010 edition of Genes and Development. Their study reveals how cancer cells become impervious to the drug by activating a specific biochemical cascade. The latter, normally triggered by a chemical messenger called cyclic AMP, is permanently stimulated in cells refractory to the treatment...