'Obscurins' could help predict and detect breast cancer risk

A new discovery published in the FASEB Journal could lead to a diagnostic tool for physicians assessing breast cancer risk. Proteins called ‘obscurins,’ once believed to be found only in muscle cells, act as tumor suppressors in the breast. When their expression is lost or their genes mutate, cancer develops. The new findings suggest that the loss of obscurins makes breast epithelial cells more resistant to natural cell death, which is necessary to prevent damaged cells from transforming into cancer. "Our studies on the role of obscurins in the development of breast cancer lay the framework for a series of in-depth investigations aiming to understand how these proteins act to prevent tumor formation," Aikaterini Kontrogianni-Konstantopoulos, a researcher involved in the work, said in a press release. "It is our hope that our research will provide important new insights into breast tumor biology and ultimately yield new targets for the development of innovative therapeutic strategies."