Protein identified that regulates effectiveness of Taxol chemotherapy in breast cancer
Cancer researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center have taken a step towards understanding how and why a widely used chemotherapy drug works in patients with breast cancer.
In laboratory studies, the researchers isolated a protein, caveolin-1, showing that in breast cancer cells this protein can enhance cell death in response to the use of Taxol, one of two taxane chemotherapy drugs used to treat advanced breast and ovarian cancer. But in order to work, they found the protein needs to be "switched on," or phosphorylated. The results were reported in the Feb. 23 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry.
Their finding suggests it may eventually be possible to test individual breast cancer patients for the status of such molecular markers as caveolin-1 in their tumors to determine the efficacy-to-toxicity ratio for Taxol, said the study’s first author, postdoctoral fellow Ayesha Shajahan, Ph.D., of the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at Georgetown.
"Because breast tumors are not all the same, it is important to know the cancer’s molecular makeup in order to increase the efficiency, and lower the toxicity, of chemotherapy drugs, and this work takes us some steps forward in this goal," she said. "It also offers insights into why some breast cancer cells can become resistant to therapeutic drugs."
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