Triple-negative breast cancer has the worst prognosis of any type of breast cancer, both because it is comprised of many different subtypes and because there are no targeted therapies for any of those subtypes. Now, scientists from Harvard University have identified a vulnerability of one fairly common subtype of triple-negative breast cancer, namely, basal-like triple-negative breast cancer.

The authors did a siRNA knockdown screen comparing different cell lines, and found that basal-like triple negative breast cancers were particularly dependent on proteasome inhibition, the cell's waste disposal system. When they treated cell lines with proteasome inhibitors, cancer stem cells did not survive such treatment.

Killing such cancer stem cells is a priority of cancer drug development. The authors noted that Velcade (bortezomib, Millennium: The Takeda Oncology Co.) "does not penetrate tumors well, [but] our findings suggest that next-generation proteasome inhibitors are worth investigating for treatment of this TNBC subtype." Their work appeared in the Aug. 12, 2013, issue of Cancer Cell.

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