This document discusses three genes - COX2, HB-EGF, and ST6GALNAC5 - that are involved in breast cancer spreading to the brain. COX2 and HB-EGF help breast cancer spread to the lungs, while ST6GALNAC5 causes cancer cells to have a sticky outer layer, allowing them to remain in brain blood vessels long enough to enter brain tissue. Researchers injected human breast cancer cells into mice and found that ST6GALNAC5 makes the cells sticky and able to attach to and pass through the blood vessels in the brain.

1. Chad Stephens

2.  Three Genes in Mice might show how breast cancer
gets to the brain
 The first two COX2 and HB-EGF helped find how
breast cancer gets to lungs
 ST6GALNAC5 the third gene has cell with a sticky
outside layer
 Then they stay in blood vessels in the brain long
enough to enter brain tissue

3.  When breast cancer gets to the brain it needs to go
through several different capillaries
 Those Capillaries make up the brains blood barrier
 “To study how this happens, Massague, graduate
student Paula Bos and colleagues used cancer cells
from patients whose breast cancer had spread. They
injected them into mice, and isolated the ones that
could grow in the mouse brain.”
 Found out what cells in mice and humans were most
active

4.  COX2 and HB – EGF make cancer cells more mobile
and invasive
 ST6GALNAC5 causes a chemical reaction in breast
cancer cells that coats them and makes them sticky
 It may be possible to find drugs to block this process
 Breast cancer is the main killer of women in the world
 It kills 500,000 people a year and is diagnosed in 1.2
million every year