3月2日,德国马克斯普朗克心肺研究所2日发表声明说，“封锁”患乳腺癌实验鼠癌细胞内的一种受体蛋白质能阻止癌细胞转移。该研究或许有助于开发阻止乳腺癌患者体内癌细胞转移的新方法。
乳腺癌是女性最常见的恶性肿瘤之一，几乎每10名女性中就有一人患这种病，患者中约四分之一的人会罹患恶性乳腺癌。如患上这种乳腺癌，癌细胞极易出现转移。
一般来讲，乳腺癌如及早发现，治愈率相对较高，癌细胞一旦转移，完全治愈的可能性则微乎其微。因此，防止乳腺癌转移至关重要。
马克斯普朗克心肺研究所研究人员最新发现，抑制实验鼠乳腺癌细胞中受体蛋白Plexin B1的基因表达后，癌细胞的肺转移现象“明显减少”。
研究人员表示，虽然这种方法在多大程度上适用于人类尚不清楚，但希望能借此找到一种新途径，防止乳腺癌的扩散。(生物谷Bioon.com)
doi: doi:10.1172/JCI60568
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ErbB-2 signals through Plexin-B1 to promote breast cancer metastasis
ThomasWorzfeld, JakubM. Swiercz, MarioLooso, BeateK. Straub, KishorK. Sivaraj, Stefan Offermanns JClinInvest.
Diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer is associated with a very poor prognosis. New therapeutic targets are urgently needed, but their development is hampered by a lack of understanding of the mechanisms leading to tumor metastasis. Exemplifying this is the fact that the approximately 30% of all breast cancers overexpressing the receptor tyrosine kinase ErbB-2 are characterized by high metastatic potential and poor prognosis, but the signaling events downstream of ErbB-2 that drive cancer cell invasion and metastasis remain incompletely understood. Here we show that overexpression of ErbB-2 in human breast cancer cell lines leads to phosphorylation and activation of the semaphorin receptor Plexin-B1. This was required for ErbB-2–dependent activation of the pro-metastatic small GTPases RhoA and RhoC and promoted invasive behavior of human breast cancer cells. In a mouse model of ErbB-2–overexpressing breast cancer, ablation of the gene encoding Plexin-B1 strongly reduced the occurrence of metastases. Moreover, in human patients with ErbB-2–overexpressing breast cancer, low levels of Plexin-B1 expression correlated with good prognosis. Our data suggest that Plexin-B1 represents a new candidate therapeutic target for treating patients with ErbB-2–positive breast cancer.
