The discovery leads to personal essays mouse fast in breast cancer

Someone with breast cancer is not the same as another person because of mutations of different genes in each tumor. It is therefore difficult to meet, the best treatment for the patient. With the finding that the genetic complexity of tumors in mice parallels that begin in humans, researchers at the Institute of Sciences at Duke University and genome policy and Duke University Medical Center study, the studies mouse, such as clinical trials on humans to evaluate ob das Verständnis Tumor Vielfalt Krebsbehandlung verbessern können.

"Giving does not happen all the same handful of topical treatments for very different types of tumors into account," said Joseph Nevins, PhD, Barbara Levine, a professor at the University of Genomics of breast cancer at 'Duke University, Center for Applied Genomics and Technology attackers at Duke University. "It's like trying to detect a virus without knowing they are HIV, influenza virus, or may be treated with cold. "

A study published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Nevins and his colleagues examined carefully, made a large number of mammary tumors in mice and genomic analysis to distinguish tumors.

"Identifying the genetic mechanisms of tumor sensitivity to drugs," said Nevins. "We still have much to learn."

Mice bred to be a variant of the gene Myc, they have tumors that are acquired, however, mutations in additional genes that contribute to the development of tumors, including mutations in Ras, and others. The spectrum of variation in the tumor at the genetic level, mimicking the complexity of human cancers.

"If we can successfully treat a tumor, we must recognize the presentation of the heterogeneity of so-called breast cancer, and drugs fit precisely on the characteristics of this tumor in particular," said Nevins. "Today, breast tumors can verify that estrogen-sensitive or sensitive HER-2, but on the scale, they are classified. We human studies on the biological pathways underlying research and consider how best to play therapy with each patient. But these investigations are long. We can now respond to new strategies for developing a therapy using a sub-type of tumor in mice, and results in a much shorter time. "

Nevins and his colleagues to conduct studies on mice, they can cause in humans: Find the tumor, an aspiration to learn what they can do about the tumor, and compared to a drug on the scientific database. Studies of the mouse can not replace human studies, but they can be an important element of promoting a strategy, "said Nevins.

"This work has both the importance of biological and computer models highlights the complexity and heterogeneity of human cancers to deteriorate," said Daniel Gallahan, Ph.D., program director of the Program Integrative biology of cancer at the National Cancer Institute. "This kind of analysis can be used more effectively align a therapeutic strategy for cancer specific individual.

In parallel with studies in humans, studies on mice show what works and what does not in study methods, data collection, analysis and other aspects of experience. Researchers can then translate these results immediately to support clinical trials on humans kept as efficiently as possible.

With so much happening around the search for the mouse model around the world, why not these differences observed in tumors of mice? Analysis of gene expression in tumors of mice is not large enough to easily implemented, "said Nevins.

"We have examined a large number, up to 80 tumor samples of mice. And the same way that a picture is clearer, if you have more pixels than adding information about the tumor, more clearly, as we studied more samples, "he said." In fact, we went to a higher resolution and could begin to see patterns more clearly.