Some prostate cancers linked to estrogen

NEW YORK, May 28 (UPI) -- New York scientists have pinpointed the hormone estrogen as a key player in about half of all prostate cancers.

More than 450 prostate cancer samples provided information on more than 6,000 genes that implicated estrogen -- known as a "female hormone" but also produced by men -- as part of a molecular pathway that results in the fusion of two genes promoting prostate cancer growth.

Dr. Mark A. Rubin of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center says 50 percent of prostate cancers harbor a common recurrent gene fusion, and the researchers believe this confers a more aggressive nature to these tumors.

"Interfering with this gene fusion -- or its downstream molecular pathways -- will be crucial in the search for drugs that fight the disease," Rubin said in a statement. "Based on our new data, we now believe that inhibiting estrogen may be one way of doing so."

Rubin conducted the study with Dr. Sunita Setlur and Dr. Kirsten Mertz while at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, and in collaboration with Dr. Todd Golub and other members of the Broad Institute at the Massachusetts of Technology and Harvard University.