There may be a ‘Goldilocks’ level of oestrogen receptors in breast cells: too few or too many and the breast cells are more likely to become cancerous.
- Alison Dunning
Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer among women. Around one in eight women in the general population is expected to develop the disease at some point in her life. The majority of cases occur in women aged 50 and over.
The female sex hormone oestrogen acts as a trigger, binding to a molecule known as an oestrogen receptor in most breast cells and triggering a cascade of signals that cause the cell to behave normally. However, the oestrogen receptor is switched off in some cells and these do not respond to the hormone.
An international collaboration, led by researchers at the University of Cambridge and the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, examined the DNA surrounding the gene for the oestrogen receptor – known as ESR1 – in women with different types of breast cancer against those of healthy controls to identify genetic variants responsible for an increased risk of breast cancer. The results are published in the journal Nature Genetics.
Among their findings, the researchers discovered five cancer-risk variants based within or around the ESR1 gene. This gene has long been known to be related to the risk and progress of breast cancer, but little is understood of how it works and why it should affect breast cancer.
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Image: Breast cancer reflection
Credit: williami5
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
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