Cell-Surface Molecule May Hold Key To Prevention.(Brief Article)

2001 SEP 6 - (NewsRx Network) -- A molecule found on the surface of many types of cells, but at high levels in breast cancer cells, may lead to new methods to prevent and treat the disease, a University of California, Irvine research team has found.

The molecule, called glypican-1, plays an important role in regulating interactions between cells during growth. It was found in significantly higher levels in certain cancerous breast tissue and appears to enhance the action of growth factors that are associated with cancer.

This is the second study from the same research team to show a connection between glypican-1 and cancer. While the first focused on pancreatic cancer, the present study underscores the importance of this gene in breast cancer. It was published in a recent issue of Cancer Research.

Interruption of glypican's activity may provide a new way to treat or prevent the disease. The study also indicates that measuring levels of the molecule may allow doctors to detect the disease earlier.

Dr. Murray Korc, professor of medicine at UCI's College of Medicine, and Arthur Lander, associate professor of developmental and cell biology at UCI's School of Biological Sciences, led a team that found high levels of glypican-1 in human breast cancer cells. Concentrations of glypican-1 were very low in noncancerous breast tissues. This high concentration in cancer cells suggests the molecule helps trigger a chain of events that promote the activation of a gene that previous studies have associated with breast cancer.

The cause of breast cancer is still unknown. Many researchers, including Korc and Lander, believe the cause of the disease may lie in the interactions between certain molecules that may encourage cancer-causing genes to behave differently than they do in normal cells.

"The large increase in glypican-1 in cancerous cells strongly suggests that the molecule promotes the activity of certain genes in ways that ...