Researchers Link New Molecular Culprit to Breast Cancer Progression

Researchers from Johns Hopkins have identified a protein that helps breast cancer cells unlock genes needed in order to spread the disease throughout the body. Gregg Semenza, the Professor of Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and director of the Vascular Program at Hopkins’ Institute for Cell Engineering, announced that a protein that wasn’t known before to be involved in breast cancer progression has been identified. The protein is labeled as JMJD2C and it is the key that opens up a whole suite of genes needed for tumors to grow and metastasize. It has now been labeled as a new potential target for cancer drug development.



Semenza and his colleagues were able to find this protein while tracking the activity of another protein, HIF-1, that switches hundreds of genes involved in development, red blood cell production, and metabolism. Previous studies had already concluded that HIF-1 was involved with creation of switching on genes that made breat tumors more malignant. Doctor Weibo Luo led the project in researching more into the HIF-1 and how it works, and how other proteins react to it. During this research, over 200 proteins were found to interact with HIF-1 but only one was labeled as its partner. JMJD2C is turned on by HIF-1, which then binds to DNA, and allows for more HIF-1 to bind to the same sties and active target genes.

This finding is great news for those who suffer from breast cancer and I am happy to see that there is progress in this area. I was unaware in the methods of which proteins that support cancer were identified and this article and finding is very interesting to me. I'm glad to see that there is recent discoveries that may help stop this cancer and I hope that this newly identified protein JMJD2C can be successfully stopped by future medication.