WntResearch comment research article on Wnt-5a

New research provides insights to how Wnt-5a inhibits breast cancer cell migration/invasion and identifies a new marker of biological activity of the drug candidate Foxy-5

A scientific article, recently published online in the Journal of Experimental and Clinical Cancer Research, describes new preclinical research that underscores the potential of the human protein Wnt-5a to inhibit the ability of breast cancer cells to move and form metastases. The authors also present a new mechanism that contributes to this. Further, a new biomarker has been identified, which could be used to evaluate the biological activity of treatment with WntResearch’s drug candidate Foxy-5.

Professor Tommy Andersson's research team at Lund University has shown that the human protein Wnt-5a inhibits breast cancer cell invasiveness, regardless of a change in the process referred to as "epithelial-mesenchymal transition". Instead, it was shown that the presence of Wnt-5a activity in these cells leads to a down regulation of CD44 - a protein that is associated with tumor cell invasion and metastasis. This latter finding also implies that the expression of CD44 could be used as a biomarker to confirm induction of Wnt-5a signaling during treatment with WntResearch’s drug candidate, Foxy-5.

Read the full abstract here:

http://jeccr.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13046-016-0421-0