The most common type of breast cancer in elderly women - cancer with positive receptors of estrogen and progesterone (ER / PR) - is linked by scientists with a protein that prevents cell damage that occurs during aging.

A new study, led by associate professor of biology of cancer, pediatrics and radiation oncology Dr. David Gius (David Gius) of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, shows how the deficiency of this protein can lay the foundation for the development of tumors of this Type.

The results of the work, published in the journal Molecular Cell, provide information that can help in the screening, as well as the prevention and treatment of this common disease.

Cancer is a disease associated with aging, and most of its cases occur in people older than 50 years. However, the underlying biological processes are unclear.

"The relationship between aging and cancer is one of the most accurately established facts in the field of cancer research," explains Dr. Gaius.

At the end of the 1990s, with an increase in the life expectancy of animals on a diet with a limited number of calories, proteins called sirtuins. Scientists came to the conclusion that sirtuins protect cells from damage arising in the course of aging.

Sirtuins are found in all living organisms, including humans, in which 7 different species of these proteins.

"When sirtuins were discovered, it became obvious that there could be a mechanical connection between the genes that determine the duration of life and cancer," says Gaius.

News. Gradusnik. En.