Predicting Poor Chemotherapy Response in Breast Cancer Patients

A marker of neoadjuvant chemotherapy was recently identified by researchers at the University of Vermont.

A study published in JCI Insight found that a low expression of methylation-controlled J protein (MCJ) is an indicator of poor response to chemotherapy. In the prospective study, 62 patients with breast cancer were enrolled.

Researchers demonstrated that MCJ expression correlates with pathological and clinical responses to neoadjuvant chemotherapy. After analyzing a large clinical data set from breast cancer repositories, researchers found that breast cancer patients who had tumors with low MCJ expression had reduced relapse free survival.

Researchers also examined a mammary tumor mouse model that revealed MCJ-deficient mice had tumors that were large in size and increased chemoresistance. The findings suggest that MCJ has the potential to be used as a marker of chemotherapy response and may be a therapeutic target for breast cancer treatment.