Is Estrogen the Answer for Osteosarcoma?

Bone biologists have long understood how estrogen drives osteoclasts to make new bone. While evidence hinted that a loss of estrogen signals might also play a role in bone-forming cancers like osteosarcoma, this idea has remained untested. Lillo Osuna and colleagues present data demonstrating widespread epigenetic silencing of estrogen receptor in human osteosarcomas. Exposure to demethylating agents caused reexpression of estrogen receptor, which promoted therapeutic differentiation of these tumors. See related article by Lillo Osuna et al., p. 1054 .
(©2019 American Association for Cancer Research.)