Australian Researchers Found Protein behind Aggressive Breast Cancer

Australian researchers of Sydney’s Garvan Institute claimed that they discovered primary factor which made breast cancer aggressive as well as resistant to the treatments. Protein called ELF5 is responsible for making the tumours of breast cancer more aggressive as well as resistant to treatments, revealed the key researcher Chris Ormandy.

Chris Ormandy was studying about this protein for 10 years. The protein also plays an important role in breast cancer development. Study revealed that in the breast cancer, certain molecular decisions take place. ELF5 changes the already-existing tumour to the oestrogen-insensitive type. The study depicted that cancers that are unmanageable to anti-oestrogen treatment are like that because they elevate the levels of ELF5 and also become oestrogen receptor negative functionally.
 
Around half of the women will eventually not be able to tackle to anti-oestrogen treatment which they would have been undergoing, which would in turn further progress their tumour. In the tissue-culture models of this type of cancer which were made numb to anti-oestrogen treatment, levels of ELF5 increase dramatically.
 
Even though the study was important because it would open up new possibilities of treatments, but this may take several years. The study would help in targeting ELF5 in such a way that it would help in treating the breast cancers which became numb to anti-oestrogens.