Breast Cancer "Profiling" Could Yield More Effective Treatment

Newswise — Scientists from Pennsylvania's Geisinger Health System have found new ways to "profile" breast cancer tumors, a development that could lead to individually customized treatments for patients.

According to a paper by Geisinger researchers published in the latest edition of the Annals of Clinical & Laboratory Science, doctors may soon be "more aware" of how to more effectively treat breast cancer on a case-by-case basis. It's encouraging news during October's "Breast Cancer Awareness Month."

Robert E. Brown, Mingyue Lun, Jeffrey W. Prichard, Thomas M. Blasick and Ping L. Zhang " all from the Division of Laboratory Medicine, and Weis Center for Research at Geisinger Medical Center in Danville, Pa. " collaborated on the study, which used proteomic techniques to break down the protein circuitry in three human breast cancer cell lines. Proteomics takes molecular medicine beyond genomics to map the circuitry of cells and understand the impact of disease and therapy on cellular networks. The researchers subjected three human breast cancer cell lines to chemical reactions to detect categories of proteins in the cancerous cells.

In their paper titled "Morphoproteomic and Pharmacoproteomic Correlates in Hormone-Receptor-Negative Breast Carcinoma Cell Lines," they conclude that proteomic profiling of individual tumors "may enable the pathologist and oncologist to design anti-tumor therapy that is customized for an individual patient."

"This study shows how proteomics techniques can be used to better identify the proteins in the breast cancer cell " allowing oncologists to apply this profiling to patient material so that individual tumors can be categorized accordingly," said Brown. "The more we know about each tumor, the better the chance that we can come up with a more specific plan to effectively treat it."

The researchers introduced various antibodies to the human breast cancer cell lines to localize the immunoreactive substances and detect several categories of protein. They found:

* A close association between the chemical reaction that detects the presence of an antigen " the protein they're trying to detect in the breast cancer cells " and the response to inhibitors. By targeting the specific protein or its signaling pathway, such inhibitors reduce tumor cell growth.

* Correlations between the sites of action of the pharmaceutical agents (the inhibitors) and their impact on the downstream expression of proteins that promote the growth or survival of the tumor cells.

"These inhibitors are selective in the targets they hit and have the potential advantage of being less toxic to the rest of the body," said Brown.

"It's exciting because by using the approach we took in this study, we have been able to find protein circuits that are amenable to specific targeted therapies. We are optimistic that this could contribute to the development of templates for customized therapy in individual breast cancer patients who have failed conventional therapy."