Environmentally Induced Gene Silencing in Breast Cancer

摘要

The main goal of the study was to test the hypothesis that a reduction in gene expression could induce gene silencing (i.e. relatively stable loss of gene expression) in breast cells. Silencing of a variety of tumor suppressor genes plays a major role in the initiation and progression of breast cancer. Our ultimate goal is to determine if environmentally induced gene repression plays a role as a trigger for the silencing of genes. The purpose of the work described below was to confirm or refute the hypothesis.