Home Article

New hope emerges for breast cancer

2018-05-09

HANGZHOU, May 8 (ChinaDaily) -- A medication widely used for the treatment of bone diseases is hopeful of becoming a targeted drug for basal-like breast cancer (BLBC), according to latest findings from the Zhejiang University School of Medicine.

The finings, made by a research group led by Professor Dong Chenfang, revealed  that zoledronic acid (ZA), a marketed drug for treating osteoporosis,  has the potential to become a valuable targeted drug for treating BLBC.  The findings were published on the May 4 issue of US-based The Journal of Experimental Medicine.

BLBC,  which generally falls into the triple-negative breast cancer subtype,  is associated with a poor clinical outcome due to few treatment options  and poor therapeutic response. There is an urgent need to elucidate the  determinants of aggressiveness in BLBC and identify potential  therapeutic targets for this disease.

Dong  and his colleagues analyzed over 5,000 breast cancer patient samples  and found that a metabolic enzyme UGT8 was dramatically elevated in  BLBC. Breast cancer cells with high UGT8 expression produce large  amounts of sulfatide, leading to activating signaling pathways critical  for the survival and metastasis of BLBC. Depleting UGT8 from these cells  lowered sulfatide production and decreased the lung metastasis in mice  model.

The  researchers also identified that zoledronic acid (ZA), a marketed drug  for treating osteoporosis, is a direct inhibitor of UGT8, which  efficiently inhibits the enzymatic activity of UGT8 and blocks the  metastasis of the cancer cells.

Two  recent retrospective studies from randomized trials showed that a trend  favoring ZA treatment was observed in triple-negative breast cancer  despite relatively small sample size. “Our study and these retrospective  findings strongly support the translational value of ZA as a direct  inhibitor of UGT8, and BLBC might be the most promising subtype to be  effectively treated with additional ZA”, Dong told China Daily on Monday  (May 7). However, further clinical trials are required to assess its  druggability for the treatment of this challenging disease, Dong added.