In the long effort to understand why cancer so often finds its way to bone, researchers at Baylor College of Medicine have uncovered a molecular culprit hiding in plain sight: the loss of a single tumor suppressor gene, NF1, present in nearly two-thirds of metastatic estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer cases. When this gene fails, cancer cells do not simply grow faster — they rewrite their environment, corrupting bone tissue and silencing the immune system in tandem. The discovery, published in Cancer Letters, suggests that the half-million lives lost each year to metastatic ER+ breast ca
NF1 Loss Links ER+ Breast Cancer to Bone Metastasis Through Immune Suppression
ER+ breast cancer metastasis accounts for approximately 500,000 deaths globally annually, with bone metastasis being the primary cause of death in this population.