Yale researchers discovered that the epigenetic regulator gene cat eye syndrome chromosome region candidate 2, or CECR2, is responsible for driving breast cancer metastasis.
Their findings were published Feb. 2 in Science Translational Medicine. Researchers profiled matched pair transcriptomes, which show the full range of messenger RNA expressed by an organism, of primary breast tumors and metastases from human patients.
Among 13 epigenetic factors correlated with an increased amount of M2 macrophages, CECR2 was a top upregulated gene. Based on these findings, researchers concluded the CECR2 gene is required for breast cancer metastasis.