Cancer Res: E2A regulates the stemness, metastasis and treatment resistance of breast cancer

Cancer stem cells (CSC) are thought to be involved in tumor initiation, treatment resistance and metastasis

Metastasis and treatment resistance are the main challenges facing current oncology

The E2A protein (E12/E47) is a member of the basic helix-loop-helix (BHLH) TF family.

E2A regulates the stemness, metastasis and treatment resistance of breast cancer

Image source: https://cancerres.

In order to evaluate the contribution of specific EMT-TF, especially E2A factor, to breast CSC biology, the authors generated conditional E2A knockout mice in the context of the MMTV-PyMT model of BC

In summary, this study shows that E2A's EMT-TF plays a key role in the stemness of BC, tumor initiation and metastasis, and characterizes a new E2A-Snail1 axis involved in the occurrence and dedifferentiation of breast tumors, and confirms E2A is a vulnerable target in new treatments for BC patients

references

Celia López-Menéndez et al.