C-myc oncogene expression in estrogen-dependent and-independent breast cancer. Clinical Chemistry 39:353-355

We demonstrate that c-mycgene expression is essential for growth of breast cancer cells. Italso plays an important role in the progression of human breast cancer. c-myc gene amplification may be important for cancer cell inva-sion, but perhaps not essential for nodal metastasis. We also provide compelling evidence that the c-myconco-gene is an estrogen target gene in hormone-responsive breast cancer. Hormonal progression of breast cancer could be brought about by the enhanced expression of the c-mycgene, with gene amplificationand enhanced c-myc mRNA stability being two major mechanisms involved. Tumor progression encompasses multiple changes in-cluding such characteristics as hormone dependence, growth rate, invasiveness, and metastatic potential (1). Our own efforts in the past decade have focused on th