Study: New Gene May Provide Important Breast Cancer Clue

Researchers have discovered a new gene that they believe may be a missing link that triggers both hereditary and spontaneous forms of breast cancer.

Women who inherit faulty BRCA genes are at significantly increased risk of breast cancer. But the new EMSY gene appears to shut down a form of fully-functioning BRCA -- increasing risk in other women.

Inheriting faulty BRCA genes gives women a high risk of breast and ovarian cancer - but only 5% of breast cancers run in families like this.

Scientists have been hunting for the genes that cause spontaneous breast cancers ever since the BRCA genes were identified eight years ago. Only 5 percent of breast cancers run in women inheriting faulty BRCA genes.

"Discovering such an important new gene is very exciting and gives us the piece in the jigsaw we've been looking for," said lead researchers Tony Kouzarides.

In their study which will be reported in the journal Cell, the researchers said tests on hundreds of tumor samples revealed that 13 percent of breast cancers contained extra copies of the EMSY gene, but it was never found in normal tissue.

EMSY seems to play a particularly important role in aggressive forms of breast cancer, with women whose tumors had extra copies of the EMSY gene surviving 6.4 years on average compared with 14 years for those whose breast cancers had normal amounts of EMSY.

Testing for EMSY early in breast cancer treatment might thus enable doctors to predict how aggressive the disease is likely to become, and how aggressively it needs to be treated, the searchers suggested.

Other Sources: Cell