Study leader Marco Falasca of Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry says stopping metastasis stops cancer from killing people -- and this discovery could lead to metastasis-blocking drugs.

The researchers investigated the role of the enzyme in cell invasion and find it is required for breast cancer cell invasion activation of the protein Rac1. They revealed a functional link between the enzyme and Rac1 that provides insight into processes regulating cell invasion.

"Consistent with these data we detected an increase in the enzyme expression in metastases compared to primary tumors in breast cancer patients," Falasca says in a statement.

"Therefore the enzyme is critical for metastasis formation, and development and inhibition of this enzyme has a therapeutic potential in the treatment of metastasis dissemination."

The findings were published in Cancer Research.