Silencing a gene slows breast-tumor fighter
By Nathan Seppa
Just as every actor needs a director to shout “Action,” each gene in the body needs a promoter—nearby DNA that switches on the gene at appropriate times. The promoter’s cue can take on life-or-death importance when the gene is p53, a tumor suppressor.
Researchers now report that a protein that activates the p53 promoter is frequently missing in breast cancer cells. Of tumor samples taken from 30 women with breast cancer, 20 were devoid of the protein, called HOXA5, says study coauthor Saraswati Sukumar, a molecular biologist at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore.