On Dec. 3, 2019, the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory researchers with colleagues at UConn Health and JAX were curious whether splicing factors could be responsible for the way some breast cancers grow and spread through the body.

The researchers blocked splicing factor called TRA2 with expression in cells, tiny tumors in a petri dish, and in mice. In all three situations, cells lacking TRA2 were unable to metastasize. The study results were published in Cell Reports.