Master protein for tumor growth

The Scientist reports Master protein for tumor growth.

Researchers have identified a master protein that regulates some 1,000 genes controlling for tumor growth and metastasis in breast cancer, according to a paper published today in Nature.

The researchers, led by Terumi Kohwi-Shigematsu at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, stumbled upon SATB1's heightened expression while screening aggressive human breast cancer tumor samples. Surprisingly, they found that SATB1 is only expressed in aggressive tumors. "SATB1 is a gene organizer, a regulator of a large body of genes," Kohwi-Shigematsu told The Scientist. "Almost 1,000 genes changed expression with SATB1 expressed."

Fascinating and very promising.

P.S. It's cute the way paper 'zines like The Scientist are taking baby steps to the web.  They are confused between blog and post - they call individual posts "blogs" - but they're trying...  And in the meantime we get this kind of information more often than monthly.