Article Assignment 3: Article Summary

Introduction
In 2014 Scientist discovered and experimented about cell typerestricted activity. They found that a protein Heterogeneous Nuclear
Ribonucleoprotein M (hnRNPM) increases breast cancer metastasis by
regulating alternative splicing. Tumor metastasis is the spreading of
cancerous organisms or cells to parts of the body through blood vessels or
tissue. It remains the number one cause of cancer-related death. (article
para. 1). Scientists found a RNA-binding protein that triggers the metastasis.
Scientists already know that tumor cells spread quickly and jump to the
surrounding tissues and organs. This is called epithelialmesenchymal
transition (EMT).
Researchers chose this subject because cancer is still a huge issue and
is the cause of many deaths; although there have been many studies and
researches on the subject, its cure still remains a medical mystery. So these
researchers believe that in order for them to treat cancer they must know
and understand the roots of metastasis. This topic has a great impact and
relevance on science and the world. According to recent studies of the
American Cancer Society, it was found that 43% of males are diagnosed with
prostate cancer and 41% of women are diagnosed with breast cancer in the
United States for the top 10 cancer sites (http://www.cancer.org). Any form of
research or quest for a cure is significant amount of help to those patients.

Based off of recent studies scientist have found that RNA splicing,
(which is the removal of introns from mRNA precursors and the reattachment
of exons) affects EMT. Now they are
trying to gather if splicing is crucial for metastasis or not. In addition they are
trying to figure out if the understanding of EMT and metastasis is key to
understanding and finding a cure or treatment for metastatic tumors,
specifically in breast cancer. Because it is the leading cancer disease for
woman, this topic is valuable. Breast cancer is considered a metastatic
cancer but it is not the only one, there are other metastatic cancers like
leukemia, kidney, and lung cancer. This would trickle into a treatment
process for many kinds or cancers in this category which would be very
beneficial to society. If scientist can prove that splicing is essential for breast
cancer metastasis it would trigger a domino effect to all metastatic cancers.
Materials and Methods
Scientists used Silver-staining and mass spectrometry for their
microscopes; this is a dye to help identify the proteins in the RNA. Many
charts and graphs were used to measure their results and experiments.
Other equipment they used were microscopes (with the silver staining) to
identify the pathways of hnRNPM that carry out the EMT.
Results
This experiment showed that HNrnpm decreases the expression of
TGFb-positive regulators, including TGFRII and ACVR1, and increased

expression of the TGFb-negative regulators BMP4, BMP5, and Smad6 (Article

p. 1193) The patterns shown, were 7 overlapping exons and the hnRNPM
skipped 6 exons and 1 exon. The switching of splicing showed that 5 out of 7
occurred because of the EMT. This splicing allows hnRNPM to promote the
exon skipping. It showed the protein of tissue and cells of the lymphatic and
circulatory systems.
Discussion
The scientists study lead to better understanding because the
biochemical definitely plays a role in in the hnRNPM splicing for EMT. Strong
evidence was provided that hnRNPM affects the tumors in the lungs that was
initiated by the tumors from the breast cancer. They came to a conclusion
that hnRNPM exists and works through certain systems that cause tumor
metastasis. Although this advances the study of metastasis there is still more
to investigate whether or not TGFb is kept up by hnRNPM. It will be beneficial
to use a greater amount of different kinds of tissues other than the lung that
is being affected by the breast cancer. Scientist now will be able to monitor
the pathways by transcription.

WORK CITED

"Cancer Prevalence: How Many People Have Cancer?" Cancer Prevalence:

How Many
People Have Cancer? He American Cancer Society, 20 May 2014. Web.
22 June 2016.
Yilin Xu,1 Xin D. Gao,1 Jae-Hyung Lee,2. "Cell Type-restricted Activity of
HnRNPM
Promotes Breast Cancer Metastasis via Regulating Alternative Splicing.
"Http://genesdev.cshlp.org/content/28/11/1191.full.pdf Html. Cold
Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 23 May 2016. Web. 22 June 2016.