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A new study in the journal Breast Cancer Research, “Tumor Cell Jagged-1 Promotes Regional Lymphatic Metastasis and Predicts Recurrence in Node-Positive Breast Cancer,” demonstrates the importance of tumor cell Jagged-1 in promoting the spread of breast cancer to nearby lymph nodes and presents evidence that Jagged-1 could be used as a clinical biomarker to predict breast cancer outcomes or as a potential treatment target.

The research embodies the collaborative nature of the Cancer Center, which is part of the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) and its academic health enterprise, UI Health.

The research team, led by Cancer Center Director Jan Kitajewski, PhD, included three other Cancer Center members: Tumor Microenvironment Working Group Leader Ekrem Emrah Er, PhD; Biostatistics Shared Resource leader Zhengjia Chen, PhD; and Cancer Biology Research Program member Seock Won Youn, PhD. The first author, Benjamin Gordon, MD, PhD, is an alum of the UIC College of Medicine Medical Scientist Training Program, who received a National Cancer Institute F30 Award to support his research and training.

A host of other UIC researchers, as well as researchers in Spain, contributed to the work by designing research studies, conducting experiments, acquiring data, analyzing data, providing reagents, and writing the manuscript.

The researchers concluded: “Our findings provide evidence that JAG1 contributes to lymphatic dissemination and identifies a subset of node-positive patients at higher risk of recurrence. Further study of JAG1-dependent signaling within tumor cells, lymphatic endothelium, and the lymph node microenvironment may help refine prognostic assessment and uncover new therapeutic opportunities in regional metastatic breast cancer.”