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Breast Cancer Breakthrough An iron-regulating protein could spare women from the fate of intense treatment 
Breast cancer patients may be able to avoid invasive and toxic treatments thanks to a new study, published in the online version of the journal, Science Translational Medicine. Researchers at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center (WFUBMC) found that low levels of ferroportin, the only known protein to eliminate iron from cells, are associated with the most aggressive and recurring cancers. The findings suggests that testing for ferroportin levels in women with breast cancer may one day help doctors to more accurately predict the likelihood of the cancer’s return, helping some women avoid treatments such as chemotherapy. “Ferroportin expression may help predict whether women who have had breast cancer will relapse or not,” says Frank M. Torti, M.D., director of the Comprehensive Cancer Center at WFUBMC, and senior author on the paper and co-lead investigator for the study. Torti added that the results suggest that levels of ferroportin may eventually help guide therapy for breast cancer patients. Drawing on the hypothesis that iron may be altered in breast cancer and that the alteration might be important in the behavior of the cancer, researchers first found a significant reduction of ferroportin in cancerous cells compared to that of normal breast cells. After artificially restoring ferroportin to near normal levels in an aggressive breast cancer cell line, they noticed that these cells grew more slowly than the tumors formed by cells with depleted levels of protein. According to Suzy V. Torti, Ph.D., an associate professor of biochemistry at Wake Forest Baptist and co-lead investigator on the paper, the reason for these findings is simple. "In the case of cancer, the ability to remove iron from cells is reduced by the depleted ferroportin levels, and as a result, iron accumulates in cancer cells. Cancer cells require iron, which allows the tumor to grow faster and perhaps become more aggressive. Because ferroportin can remove iron from the cell, when we put the protein back into the cell, the ferroportin removed the cancer's growth stimulus. Our findings suggest that ferroportin is a substantial influence on the behavior of the cancer," she says. The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), funded the study. |
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