human breast

Researchers have discovered that a gene associated with human breast stem cells can stimulate development of mammary cells by activating two critical cancer pathways.

This finding provides new evidence that breast cancer can arise from stem cells and that targeting this gene might provide a new way to treat cancers of the breast as well as other tumor types.

Bisphenol A, a chemical that leaches into food and beverages from many consumer products, causes normal, non-cancerous human breast cells to express genes characteristic of aggressive breast cancer cells.

The concentration of BPA that the researchers tested was very low (less than one tenth of a millionth of a gram per milliliter), but this concentration of BPA has been found in blood from pregnant women in both the United States and Germany.