New treatment options for Triple Negative Breast Cancer targeting cell Plasticity

Project description

Despite considerable advances in the treatment of breast cancer, therapy resistance and metastatic spread are responsible for the loss of over 3,000 lives each year in Australia. Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC) accounts for approximately 15% of all breast cancers, with up to 30% developing recurrence within three years of diagnosis, and 20% succumbing to metastatic disease within five years.

There are two major cell types in our bodies, epithelial and mesenchymal. Epithelial cells are stationary cells while mesenchymal move throughout the body. The transition of epithelial to mesenchymal cell state, is important for many processes in our bodies, such as embryonic development and wound healing. However, when epithelial cells become cancerous, as in breast cancer, they can adopt mesenchymal cell behaviour. Epithelial Mesenchymal Plasticity (EMP) is a process that allows cancer cells to switch between these cells states reversibly, increasing their ability to spread and withstand treatment. While genetic mutations play a key role in cancer formation and progression, the ability of cancer cells to transition between epithelial and mesenchymal states independent of genetic changes, is increasingly being recognised as a major mechanism driving treatment resistance and metastasis.

In this NBCF-funded study Professor Rik Thompson and the team will use well established laboratory models of metastatic breast cancer to identify targetable factors involved in EMP. Their goal is to target these factors to suppress tumour progression in pre-clinical models of TNBC. Gaining control over or reversing EMP in cancer cells has the potential to improve treatment strategies by reducing tumour growth, metastasis, and therapy resistance.

Why is this work needed

TNBC is one of most aggressive forms of breast cancer with limited treatment options. It has a high risk of recurrence and one of the poorest survival outcomes, so new treatments are desperately needed.

Expected outcomes

Successful outcomes of this study will Identifying drivers of EMP providing new insights and potential therapies for clinical utility in breast cancer, particularly for people with TNBC.