20 Jul Small Subset of Cells May Make HER2+ Breast Cancer Resistant To Treatment

MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Niels de Jonge, Ph.D
Head of the Innovative Electron Microscopy group
German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg
University of Freiburg

Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?

Response: HER2 membrane proteins play a special role in certain types of breast cancer: amplified levels of HER2 drive unrestricted cell growth. HER2-tailored antibody-based therapeutics aim to prevent cancer cell growth. However, two-thirds of HER2 positive breast cancer patients develop resistance against HER2-targeting drugs. The reason for this is not yet understood. We now found out, that HER2 dimers appeared to be absent from a small sub-population of resting SKBR3 breast cancer cells. This small subpopulation may have self-renewing properties that are resistant to HER2-antibody therapy and thus able to seed new tumor growth.

Medical Research: What should clinicians and patients take away from your report?

Response: With our new analytical capabilities to study the functional state of HER2 at he sub-cellular level, we provide a novel approach to study the functioning of HER2 proteins and obtained data not discovered before with existing methods. Possibly, research on the effect of HER2-targeting drugs using this new method, will lead to a better understanding of the causes of drug resistance. The effect of medication can now be examined in a new way, which may possible result in a better therapy with less drug resistance against breast cancer.

Medical Research: What recommendations do you have for future research as a result of this study?

Response: We aim to study the effect of HER2-targeting drugs on breast cancer cells, and in particular plan to examine small sub-populations of cells, for example, cancer stem cells. As found in our published study, small sub-populations of cells exist with a different behavior of HER2. An exciting question is thus if small sub-populations also exhibit a different response to these drugs.

Citation:

B. Peckys, U. Korf, N. de Jonge. Local variations of HER2 dimerization in breast cancer cells discovered by correlative fluorescence and liquid electron microscopy. Science Advances, 2015; 1 (6): e1500165 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1500165

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Niels de Jonge, Ph.D (2015). Small Subset of Cells Make HER2+ Breast Cancer Resistant To Treatment 

Last Updated on July 22, 2015 by Marie Benz MD FAAD