Recently, we showed that hypoxic induction of the extracellular matrix modifying enzyme lysyl oxidase (LOX) correlates with metastatic dissemination to the bone in estrogen receptor negative breast cancer and is essential for the formation of premetastatic osteolytic lesions.
Although we suggest several therapeutic interventions that may help in the management of LOX+ ER- breast cancer patients, experiments to validate the function of LOX in ER- breast cancer are still needed.
Thus, these findings identify for the first time genetic polymorphism as a mechanism of impaired tumor suppressor function of LOX-PP and suggest that it may play an etiologic role in ER-negative breast cancer.