Researchers from the Gray Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences in Tel Aviv, in partnership with researchers in 14 laboratories in Israel, USA, Italy, Germany, Poland, and Austria, have uncovered "a mechanism that allows breast cancer to send metastases to the brain - a highly lethal occurrence for which there is currently no effective treatment." Following injection of cancer cells with or without functional gene P53, results indicated that "cells with disrupted P53 activity thrived much more." These findings are crucial towards developing new drugs and personalized monitoring for early detection and treatment of brain metastases.
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Source:
Laue K, Pozzi S, Zerbib J, et al. p53 inactivation drives breast cancer metastasis to the brain through SCD1 upregulation and increased fatty acid metabolism. Nat Genet. Published online December 29, 2025. doi:10.1038/s41588-025-02446-1
Brain metastases from breast cancer remain one of the most feared complications precisely because there is currently no effective treatment once they take hold. A mechanism involving disrupted p53 activity and increased fatty acid metabolism gives researchers a concrete target to work from, and a possible route to earlier detection and monitoring. Progress like this is regularly broken down on onc brothers, where the question is always how a laboratory finding becomes something a patient can actually benefit from.
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