Researchers Create a Potential Therapy for Deadly Breast Cancer That Has Few Treatment Options
Mount Sinai researchers have designed an innovative experimental therapy that may be able to stop the growth of triple-negative breast cancer, the deadliest type of breast cancer, which has few effective treatment options, according to a study published in Nature Chemical Biology in December.
The therapy is known is MS1943. In a cancer cell line and mouse models, it degraded a protein called EZH2 that drives the growth of triple-negative breast cancer.
Research teams led by Jian Jin, PhD, Director of the Mount Sinai Center for Therapeutics Discovery, and Ramon Parsons, MD, PhD, Director of The Tisch Cancer Institute at Mount Sinai, developed MS1943 as a first-in-class small-molecule agent that selectively degrades EZH2. They also showed that agents that inhibit the enzymatic activity of EZH2 but do not degrade EZH2 did not work in triple-negative breast cancer.
MS1943 effectively reduced EZH2 protein levels in a variety of cancer cell lines, including a triple-negative breast cancer cell line, leading to the death of these triple-negative breast cancer cells.
“Our findings suggest that EZH2 selective degraders such as MS1943 may provide an emerging therapeutic approach for the treatment of triple-negative breast cancer,” said Dr. Jin, who is also Co-leader of the Cancer Clinical Investigation Program at The Tisch Cancer Institute, Mount Sinai Professor in Therapeutics Discovery, and Professor of Pharmacological Sciences, and Oncological Sciences, at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. “The EZH2 selective degrader reported in this study is also an invaluable tool to test therapeutic hypotheses in other cancers.”
This research was supported in part by the grants R01CA230854 and R01CA218600 from the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
About the Mount Sinai Health System
Mount Sinai Health System is one of the nation’s leading integrated academic health systems and one of the largest in the New York metropolitan area. Its comprehensive system includes seven hospitals, more than 400 outpatient practices, over 600 research and clinical laboratories, the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, and the Mount Sinai Phillips School of Nursing. Together, the Health System comprises approximately 48,000 employees, more than 9,000 physicians, and 8,600 nurses.
As a leading learning health system, Mount Sinai combines clinical expertise with scientific discovery to improve patient care while training the next generation of health care and biomedical leaders. The Health System provides care across every stage of life, from prenatal care through geriatrics, while advancing personalized medicine through artificial intelligence, data science, and biomedical research.
Mount Sinai is consistently recognized among the nation’s leading academic health systems for patient care, research, and education. The Mount Sinai Hospital is ranked No. 1 in New York by Newsweek and No. 5 on the magazine’s World’s Best Hospitals list. The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai ranks No. 11 among U.S. medical schools and No. 1 among freestanding medical schools for National Institutes of Health funding, reflecting the strength of its scientific enterprise and leadership in biomedical research.
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