THURSDAY, July 9 (HealthDay News) -- After patients undergo breast cancer treatment, a gene-expression signature of c-Src activation may support the survival of disseminated cancer cells, and is associated with late-onset bone metastasis, according to a study published in the July 7 issue of Cancer Cell.

Xiang H.-F. Zhang, of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, and colleagues studied 615 women with tumors for which genome-wide gene expression data was available, 43 percent of whom relapsed and had a median metastasis-free survival time of 22.1 months.

The researchers found that late-onset bone metastasis was strongly associated with c-Src activation, independent of hormone receptor status or breast cancer subtype. In bone marrow, they also found c-Src supports cancer cell survival by stimulating CXCL12-CXCR4-AKT signaling and by making the cells resistant to TNF-related apoptosis-inducing ligand.

"The link between c-Src-dependent signaling and metastatic cell survival provides mechanistic insights into metastasis latency, and suggests strategies to hasten the attrition of disseminated breast cancer cells," the authors write.

Abstract
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