NF1 Loss Links ER+ Breast Cancer to Bone Metastasis Through Immune Suppression

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