• HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
Tuesday, September 23, 2025
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News Health

Why do BRCA1 mutations cause predominantly breast and ovarian cancer?

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
July 18, 2017
in Health
Reading Time: 3 mins read
0
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram
IMAGE

Credit: UT Health San Antonio

The human body holds many mysteries, and function of the BRCA1 gene is among them. Women who inherit a faulty copy of BRCA1 have up to a 65 percent chance to develop breast cancer by age 70. They also have up to a 39 percent chance to develop ovarian cancer.

Rong Li, Ph.D., and colleagues at The University of Texas Health Science Center, now called UT Health San Antonio, are building on 15 years of BRCA1 studies. Their latest discovery, reported June 26 in Nature Communications, is of a new, previously unrecognized function of BRCA1.

Explaining tissue specificity

"BRCA1 plays a very important role in DNA repair in almost any cell type you choose to study," said Dr. Li, professor of molecular medicine at UT Health San Antonio and a holder/manager of the Tom C. and Patricia H. Frost Endowment to Advance Cancer Research and Education. "This is a function of BRCA1 that presumably is important for every cell type in the body. But we also know there is a tissue-specific cancer predisposition associated with BRCA1. If a woman loses BRCA1 function, breast and ovary are the two places that preferentially develop tumors. Is there something else BRCA1 does that could contribute to this tissue specificity?"

The answer, fleshed out in this latest Nature Communications paper, is yes.

Study of human tissues yields insights

Dr. Li and his team obtained human breast tissue specimens from breast oncologists including those led by Ismail Jatoi, M.D., Ph.D., FACS, and Richard Elledge, M.D., at the UT Health Cancer Center of UT Health San Antonio, as well as Oscar Ochoa, M.D., FACS, at PRMA Plastic Surgery. The team compared tissues of BRCA1 mutation carriers versus non-carriers and found interesting differences:

  • Gene expression-related stress is higher in BRCA1 mutation carriers;
  • This stress is only higher in luminal epithelial cells, where BRCA1-related breast tumors originate;
  • Within the luminal epithelial cells, the stress is higher in estrogen-responsive genes.

Gene expression-related stress is a result of cells expressing (or switching on) genes to carry out functions. This process sometimes damages the genetic blueprint, DNA, resulting in abnormal structures that scientists label as stress.

"The breasts and ovaries are two major estrogen-responsive sites in a woman's body," Dr. Li said. "This zooming in on the stress location is the connection we sought to make between BRCA1 dysfunction and breast and ovarian cancer predisposition. This is a very attractive model to further test, and points to an interesting direction for drug development."

The study reported in Nature Communications focused on breast tissue. Similar studies of ovarian tissue will be conducted.

###

Dr. Li is co-leader of the Cancer Development and Progression Program at the UT Health Cancer Center. His academic appointment is in the Department of Molecular Medicine in the Joe R. & Teresa Lozano Long School of Medicine at UT Health San Antonio.

This research was funded by an award from the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health. The Alamo Breast Cancer Foundation also provided support for this study.

Read more cancer research news from UT Health San Antonio: Study compares radiation, surgery for bladder cancer

For current news from the UT Health Science Center San Antonio, now called UT Health San Antonio™, please visit our online newsroom, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, with missions of teaching, research and healing, is one of the country's leading health sciences universities and is now called UT Health San Antonio™. UT Health's schools of medicine, nursing, dentistry, health professions and graduate biomedical sciences have produced more than 33,000 alumni who are advancing their fields throughout the world. With seven campuses in San Antonio and Laredo, UT Health has a FY 2017 revenue operating budget of $806.6 million and is the primary driver of its community's $37 billion biomedical and health care industry. For more information on the many ways "We make lives better®," visit http://www.uthscsa.edu.

Media Contact

Will Sansom
[email protected]
210-567-2579
@UTHealthSA

http://www.uthscsa.edu/hscnews

Original Source

https://news.uthscsa.edu/brca1-mutations-breast-cancer/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms15908

Share12Tweet8Share2ShareShareShare2

Related Posts

Metformin Combinations Show Promise in Lung Cancer

September 23, 2025

sRAGE Levels in Obese Adolescents with Metabolic Syndrome

September 23, 2025

Anatomic Inventory Fields for Transgender Patient Care

September 23, 2025

How Blood Tests Are Transforming Spinal Cord Injury Recovery

September 23, 2025
Please login to join discussion

POPULAR NEWS

  • Physicists Develop Visible Time Crystal for the First Time

    Physicists Develop Visible Time Crystal for the First Time

    69 shares
    Share 28 Tweet 17
  • Breakthrough in Computer Hardware Advances Solves Complex Optimization Challenges

    156 shares
    Share 62 Tweet 39
  • Tailored Gene-Editing Technology Emerges as a Promising Treatment for Fatal Pediatric Diseases

    50 shares
    Share 20 Tweet 13
  • Scientists Achieve Ambient-Temperature Light-Induced Heterolytic Hydrogen Dissociation

    49 shares
    Share 20 Tweet 12

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Recent News

Non-Coding RNA: New Horizons in Osteosarcoma Therapy

PCDH9’s Dual Impact on Tumors and Disorders

Chaetoceros Extract Induces Cancer Cell Death Pathways

  • Contact Us

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.