Breast Cancer Protein That Could Predict Chemotherapy Sensitivity Identified

p53 protein when present in high amounts in breast cancer tumors, is an indicator of whether DNA-damaging therapies will work or not.

Boosting the levels of p53 protein variant, breast cancer cells were unresponsive to existing treatments.

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“The primary reason women die from breast cancer is treatment resistance,” said HMRI and University of Newcastle PhD researcher Luiza Steffens-Reinhardt.

“A breast cancer that is resistant to treatment is impossible to cure. Therefore, there is an urgent need to improve therapies that target the cells responsible for resisting these therapies.”

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‘Breast cancer affects more than 19,000 women every year in Australia and around one-quarter of these people develop treatment resistance.’

Associate Professor Kelly Avery-Kiejda, who supervises Steffens-Reinhardt on her research, says, this research could be a first step in better targeting breast cancer treatment.

“One in eight women in Australia develop breast cancer and while there is a 92 percent survival rate, this doesn’t take into account secondary cancers or metastasis, which are essentially incurable,” said Associate Professor Avery-Kiejda.

“If we can identify biomarkers that predict how well a patient will respond to certain therapies, we can then target the available therapies more effectively.”

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The findings were published in a paper titled ‘Alterations in the p53 isoform ratio govern breast cancer cell fate in response to DNA damage’ in the Cell Death & Disease journal.

This paper is the culmination of investigative work that Associate Professor Avery-Kiejda started in 2009.

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This research builds on foundation research that was conducted with the generous support of the Cancer Institute NSW and the Estate of the late Joy Heather Granger.

HMRI is a partnership between the University of Newcastle, Hunter New England Health and the community.

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Source-Eurekalert