Gene stifled in some lung, breast cancers
By Nathan Seppa
Many genes encode proteins whose job is to inhibit cell growth. Some of these genes suppress the growth of tumors, and a few have become household names, such as the BRCA1 gene, which inhibits breast cancer.
A gene called RASSF1A could become the next member of this rarefied club. A study in the May 2 Journal of the National Cancer Institute establishes that many lung and breast tumors lack a functional RASSF1A. The findings suggest that the protein encoded by RASSF1A helps choke off malignancies and could lead to new cancer therapies. Indeed, the scientists found that restoring RASSF1A function to implanted human cancer cells prevented them from developing into tumors in mice.