Nat Genet: Scientists have discovered that a four-stranded DNA structure may play a key role in the development of breast cancer.

August 8, 2020 // -- In a recent study published in the international journal Nature Genetics, scientists from the University of Cambridge and other institutions found for the first time that a four-stranded DNA structure (G-quadruplexes) may play a key role in the development of specific types of breast cancer, and that the findings may provide potential new targets for the development of individualized breast cancer therapies.
: Wikipedia In 1953, scientists Francis Crick and James Watson of the University of Cambridge published an article in the journal Nature suggesting that DNA in cells is a entangled double helix structure, and 60 years later, researchers Shankar Balasubramanian and Steve Jackson found that in living cells, one An unusual four-stranded DNA structure may exist throughout the human genome, formed in a region of DNA rich in bird's aspilline (G), when a chain in the double-stranded DNA rings outwards, then doubles itself and forms a four-stranded "handle" in the genome, eventually forming a structure called a G-tyrome.
Previously, researchers developed sequencing techniques and methods to detect G-tyrogens in DNA and chromosates, and found that G-tyrogens play a key role in DNA transcription and are more likely to be in rapidly dividing cell genes In this study, which revealed for the first time the exact location of G-tythum in the formation of preserved breast cancer tumor tissue and breast cancer biopsy tissue, researchers used quantitative sequencing techniques to study the DNA structure of G-tythum in 22 tumor models.
in the process of DNA replication and cell division in cancer cells, most areas of the genome are mistakenly copied multiple times and induce changes in the number of copies (CNAs, copy numbers).
The researchers found that G-tyruple structures are more common in these CNAs, especially in specific genetic and genetic regions that play an important role in transcription, so they drive tumor growth; researcher Balasubramanian says we are very familiar with DNA double helix structures, but over the past decade, it has become increasingly clear that DNA can also exist as a four-stranded structure, and that it plays an important role in human biology, especially in fast-classifying cells, such as higher levels of cancer cells.
The abundance and location of G-tyrones in these biopsies can provide clues to the study of cancer biology and the heterogogliity of breast cancer and, more importantly, another potential weakness that researchers may be able to exploit to develop new treatments for breast cancer patients."
there are 11 substates of breast cancer, and the researchers found that each had a different G-tyrone pattern, and that it was specific to the transcription program that drives the special breast cancer substate.
usually, we think of breast cancer as a disease, but in fact there are at least 11 known subsyse types, each of which reacts differently to different drugs.
The identification of tumor-specific G-tyrone patterns may help researchers identify breast cancer sub-types in women, which in turn could help develop individualized targeted breast cancer therapies, and finally, researchers say that using synthetic molecules to target G-tyrones may inhibit cells from replicating their DNA and blocking Cell classification, which in turn slows the proliferation of out-of-control cells at the root of cancer, also identified two molecules called pyridostatin and CX-5461, which were previously tested in Phase 1 clinical trials in breast cancer patients with BRCA2 deficiency.
source: H.nsel-Hertsch, R., Simeone, A., Shea, A. et al. Landscape of G-quadruplex DNA structures in breast cancer. Nat Genet (2020). doi:10.1038/s41588-020-0672-8.