In looking for new ways to fight breast cancer, scientists from Duke-NUS Medical School have unmasked a surprising role of a protein generally associated with cancer growth. They have discovered that in estrogen receptor-positive (ER+) breast cancer, this protein acts as a tumor suppressor instead. ER+ breast cancer constitutes about 80% of all breast cancer diagnoses, yet nearly 50% of women diagnosed with it experience a relapse after initial treatment .
The unexpected finding counters long-held views that the protein, known as Gα13, acts as an accelerator of cancer cell growth, as seen with similar G-proteins. This latest discovery, published in the journal Breast Cancer Research , is the first study to identify Gα13 as a tumor suppressor in solid tumors. This could lead to new personalized approaches to breast cancer treatment involving examining levels of Gα13 and other proteins.
Dr. Lalitha Subramanyan, a Ph.D.
graduate from Duke-NUS and now a postdoctoral fellow at Duke University's Department of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology, who is the first author of the paper, said, "Our findings challenge the previous notion that Gα13 universally promotes cancer growth across different tumor types. Instead, we found evidence suggesting that Gα13 may help disrupt harmful pathways in estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer, potentially slowing or stopping the growth of cancer cells. "This makes the discovery of a protective role of Gα13 even more significant, as it addresse.