It's called triple-negative breast cancer and it manifests itself in the lack of expression of two cell surface proteins -- estrogen and progesterone receptors -- and also the protein HER2. It's a disease that does not typically respond to treatment with standard chemotherapy drugs and therefore, diagnosis can come with a poor prognosis. But a new study out of Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center in Boston indicates this type of disease is sensitive to the drug cisplatin.
The study, appearing online in the April 19 Journal of Clinical Investigation and in the journal's May print issue, shows that triple-negative breast cancer expresses larger amounts of two proteins, delta-Np63 and TAp73. Delta-Np63 binds to TAp73 and prevents it from killing cancerous cells. Cisplatin does the trick, though, and releases TAp73 from delta-Np63. This causes the cells to die and offers hope for a sometimes hopeless disease.
