Famous Breast Cancer Gene Could Affect Brain Growth 31
sciencehabit writes "The cancer gene BRCA1, which keeps tumors in the breast and ovaries at bay by producing proteins that repair damaged DNA, may also regulate brain size. Mice carrying a mutated copy of the gene have 10-fold fewer neurons and had other brain abnormalities, a new study (abstract) suggests. Such dramatic effects on brain size and function are unlikely in human carriers of BRCA1 mutations, the authors of the study note, but they propose the findings could shed light on the gene's role in brain evolution."
Re:So... (Score:5, Informative)
the dramatic effects documented in the mice in the study are unlikely to occur in women with a BRCA1 mutation, who still have some functioning BRCA1, compared with the mice who had none at all.
From skimming google, it looks like women with a Brca1 mutation have one functional copy, that mutations in both would cause death in embryonic stages. Mice lacking both copies of Brca1 are dead before birth. [nih.gov] The mice here had the gene only lost in neural tissue.
The current finding doesn't seem like a surprise. It seems to only be news because of marketing. Brca1 is probably the closest thing to a gene with a household name due to the breast cancer tie in and the patent insanity. Neural stem cells seem to have higher requirements for a lot of "housekeeping" genes. [nih.gov] And Brca1 regulates DNA repair. [wikipedia.org] As I said, we already knew that the gene was important for cell survival. This paper isn't even the first to knock it out in specific tissues. [nih.gov]
You take away a gene critical for cell survival and neural stem cells die? Wow, what a shock. Hey, I have evidence that FIRE kills neural stem cells! I should write that up and send it to PNAS too!
(Joking aside, I haven't fully read the paper. It looks like good science, I don't object to it being published in PNAS, just saying this isn't all that surprising.)