 |
Sept. 15, 2002 |
|||||||
|
Browse Archives n Lung n Breast n General n Prostate n Leukemia n Lymphoma n Colon n News/Issues |
Heart disease gene linked to prostate cancer BALTIMORE -- Sept. 15, 2002 -- Researchers have discovered that mutations in a "heart disease gene" may also play a role in hereditary prostate cancer. The findings, which offer new evidence that at least some cases of prostate cancer may begin with an infection and inflammatory response, were published online Sept. 16, 2002, ahead of the print version of Nature Genetics. Researchers at Johns Hopkins and Wake Forest universities, and The National Human Genome Research Institute led by Dr. William B. Isaacs, professor of urology at Hopkins say the gene identified 20 years as playing a role in the development of plaque in arteries may also contribute to inflammatory lesions that often acts as markers for prostate cancer. The gene, called macrophage scavenger receptor-1 (MSR1), helps immune system cells called macrophages clean up cellular debris from bacterial infections and damaged fats or lipids. Macrophage activity has been known to increase in the early stages of prostate cancer, and the Hopkins investigators suspected that some MSR1 mutations might inhibit the ability of macrophages to clean up properly after prostate infections. This is the first time that MSR1 has been linked to cancer, and it may tie infections and similar environmental exposures to cancer of the prostate in a way that we haven't thought about before, said Isaacs, who is also a faculty member at the Brady Urological Institute and Kimmel Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins. The researchers screened 159 families with hereditary prostate cancer and found seven different mutations in the MSR1 gene in 13 families or about eight percent of the hereditary prostate cancer families studied. To compare the impact of this gene in men with non-hereditary prostate cancer, the researchers screened another 731 men, 365 with prostate cancer and 366 without. Overall, the research team found that MSR1 mutations were about seven times more common in men with prostate cancer than in those without. Mutations in MSR-1 were found in 12.5 percent of African American men with prostate cancer as compared to 1.8 percent without the disease. In men of European descent, 4.4 percent of men with prostate cancer and less than one percent without prostate cancer had MSR1 mutations. "This genetic evidence suggests that MSR1 may play an important role in prostate cancer susceptibility in both African American men and men of European descent," says Dr. Jianfeng Xu, of the Center for Human Genomics at Wake Forest. Isaacs and colleagues will conduct additional studies to uncover the pathway that the MSR1 gene controls and confirm the prevalence of MSR1 mutations in larger studies of prostate cancer patients. |
Gene for an inherited form of prostate cancer identified Gene discovery leads to first mouse model of prostate cancer |
||||||
SUBSCRIBE
FREE