Source: CCTV.com
05-08-2009 10:28
Special Report: Tech MaxBEIJING, May 7 (Xinhuanet) -- U.S. scientists have discovered a gene that helps cancer to spread into the brain.
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| An MRI scan depicting a brain with tumors |
According to researchers Wednesday, the brain is protected by a densely-packed network of tiny blood vessels known as the blood-brain barrier.
This barrier prevents cells and molecules circulating in the general bloodstream from entering the brain tissue.
In the study, published in the journal Nature, the researchers identified three genes that help spread of breast cancer into the brain.
Two of the genes, COX2 and HB-EGF, have already been found to help cancer spread to the lungs.
The third gene, ST6GALNAC5, seems to work by helping breast cancer cells stick to blood vessels in the brain, the researchers said.
ST6GALNAC5 is normally active only in brain tissue, and causes a chemical reaction to create a coating on the surface of breast cancer cells -- "a previously unrecognized participant in brain metastasis," said researchers.
"Our research sheds light on the role these genes play in determining how breast tumor cells break free and, once mobile, how they decide where to attack," Joan Massague of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, who worked on the study, said in a statement.
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Editor:Yang Jie
