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Tracy Hampton, PhD

JAMA. 2007;298(17):1998.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

A particular microRNA (a small regulatory molecule) can cause tumors to metastasize, according to a recent study by scientists at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, in Cambridge, Mass (Ma L et al. Nature. doi: [published online ahead of print September 26, 2007]). They found that this molecule, called microRNA-10b, is found in much higher levels in metastatic cancer cells than in nonmetastatic cancer cells. In addition, inserting extra copies of the microRNA into nonmetastatic human breast cancer cells forces the cells to become metastatic when injected into the mammary fat pads of mice.

The effects of microRNA-10b were found to occur through a protein called HoxD10, which blocks the expression of genes required for cancer cells to migrate. When the investigators boosted the levels of HoxD10 in the cancer cells with artificially high levels of microRNA-10b, the cells lost their ability to move and invade.

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