Antisense Gene Therapy For Breast Cancer

Ten US women are to receive a gene therapy for advanced breast cancer in the first such trial of a genetic treatment for this condition. The patients will be treated at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Tennessee, USA.

The gene therapy will attempt to switch off the production of a cellular protein, called c-fos, which stimulates transcription in vivo. Although the precise genes which c-fos regulates within the cell are unknown, previous work has revealed that blocking its production in mice can cause tumor shrinkage. Once inside the cell, the viral gene is transcribed to produce strands of antisense mRNA which inhibit c-fos mRNA.