Howard Hughes Medical Institute researchers have identified small pieces of ribonucleic acid (RNA) that suppress the spread of breast cancer to the lungs and bone. The new research shows that the most invasive and aggressive human breast cancer tumors are missing three critical microRNA molecules. When the researchers put those molecules back into human breast cancer tumors in mice, the tumors lost their ability to spread.

"The tiny RNAs prevent the spread of cancer by interfering with the expression of genes that give cancer cells the ability to proliferate and migrate," said senior author Joan Massagué, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute researcher at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

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