Lymphomas show a higher incidence and poorer prognosis in males than in females, which suggests a role for endocrine regulation in this cancer. Yakimchuk et al. used xenograft mouse models of human lymphomas to show that ligand-mediated oestrogen receptor-β (ERβ) activation inhibits angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis. These effects are not thought to be mediated by the microenvironment, as there was no difference between wild-type and ERβ-deficient mice engrafted with lymphoma cells. Furthermore, they showed that human lymphoma biopsies express ERβ, which suggests that ERβ agonists could be a viable therapy for lymphoma.
References
Yakimchuk, K. et al. Inhibition of lymphoma vascularization and dissemination by estrogen receptor β agonists. Blood http://dx.doi.org/10.1182/blood-2013-07-517292 (2014)
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Lokody, I. ERβ activation drives gender bias in lymphoma. Nat Rev Cancer 14, 157 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrc3694
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrc3694