France – The team of Dr. Almouzni, director of research at CNRS at the Institut Curie, discovered the role of a protein that can help assess the prognosis of a patient with breast cancer, to predict the developments and to decide on the most suitable treatment.

Cancer is the result of genetic changes that geneticists themselves fail to understand. Cancer research looks at the epigenetic factors to explain the wide variety of cancers. These factors may include chemical modifications of DNA or associated proteins.

As part of a study of epigenetic factors and their ability to show the evolution of cancerous tumors, the team of Dr. Almouzni looked at the protein HP1a. This protein has an indirect role in the activation or deactivation of genes in cells. It is very much present in the tumor cells.

Scientists have analyzed eighty-six samples of cancerous breast tumors, taken in 1995 and whose evolution is known in more than ten years. They found that the quantity of protein is high and most patients had developed metastases in large numbers and quickly.

Additional research is underway to be able to benefit patients as soon as possible of this new marker for prognosis. Researchers believe that its predictive capacity can be extended to other cancers and could provide appropriate treatment for each patient depending on the characteristics of the tumor.