Time: September 28, 2017

Source: Cancer Research Institute

Author: Wang Panpan

Publisher: News Center

Prof. Yu Qiang, director of JNU's Cancer Research Institute and academic chair of the Yangtze River Scholar award (the highest academic award  to an individual in higher education from the Ministry of Education) and his research team have published a new research paper in the journal Nature Medicine. The paper is titled as “Chromosome 1q21.3 amplification is a traceable biomarker and actionable target for breast cancer recurrence”. The study demonstrates that the S100A7/8/9-IRAK1 feedback loop, directed by chromosome 1q21.3, is the key component that causes breast cancer recurrence. The feedback loop can also be used as the traceable biomarker and feasible therapeutic target for breast cancer treatment.

Breast cancer is one of the most frequent and severe malignant tumors in women, and its morbidity rate is increasing. Although breast cancer research has made significant progress, most patients who have received treatment a few years before have recurrences, some fatal.  But on the molecular level, the cause of recurrence remains unclear. As a result, an explanation for the key molecular mechanism can provide a new procedure for diagnosis and treatment.

Yu and his team previously found that IRAK1 (Interleukin eceptor associated kinase 1) is a therapeutic target that drives cancer metastasis and resistance to paclitaxel, a chemotherapy medication used to treat a number of types of cancer. That research achievement was in Nature Communications in 2015.

Link to paper：

https://www.nature.com/nm/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nm.4405.html

https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms9746