Breast cancer remotely rewires hepatic circadian transcriptome

Dr. Kawaoka's group shows that murine breast cancer remotely reprograms hepatic circadian transcriptome. They, with the aid of a mouse model of breast cancer and transcriptome analysis, identified a number of abnormal daily expression patterns of oscillating genes in the liver of cancer-bearing mouse. Some genes exhibited a marked pattern of disruption, "day-night reversal." These rewired gene expression patterns led the team to find various cancer-induced physiological abnormalities in the liver such as increased oxidative stress and hepatic polyploidization. The study will be an important basis for devising a therapy that ameliorates cancer's adverse effects on host.