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Article: Tamoxifen's other anticancer hat. (new mechanism discovered by which antiestrogens fight cancer)(Biomedicine)(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- Science News
- Article date:
- April 5, 1997
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1997 Science Service, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Tamoxifen is the best-known of several drugs that have been designed to starve estrogen-hungry breast cancer cells. Pharmacologists had thought that these antiestrogens shut down cancer growth merely by binding to receptors for the natural hormone-thereby blocking estrogen's ability to activate genes that enhance cell growth. It now appears that the anticancer role of these drugs is far more complex.
In the March 18 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Monica M. Montano and Benita S. Katzenellenbogen of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign describe experiments showing that such antiestrogens themselves use the estrogen receptor to turn on ...