New Device Monitoring Real-time Cancer Metastasis

Metastasis is thought to be the main cause of cancer death. However, it has been slow in the process of preventing and treating migratory cancer cells. A research team from Harvard Medical School has identified that an overabundance of a cell receptor named Frizzled-2, along with its activator, Wnt5, appears to raise a tumor's likelihood of metastasizing. It could trigger the process known as the epithelial-mesenchymal transition(EMT). Their study may help researchers better understand how metastasis begins and inform the design of new treatments to combat it. This finding was published in Cell.

Emt generally plays a role in human development, allowing specific cells to become mobile and invasive. Then, they would move around and form new structures in the growing embryo. Previous researches have linked EMT to cancer metastasis, where tumor cells acquire those properties to disastrous effect. Nevertheless, the mechanism of this progress is still unknown.

In this study, scientists focus on the question "what makes one type of tumor metastasize and another type not?" and discovered a brand-new cell signaling pathway on the basic biology level.

After learning the importance of Frizzled-2, they also developed an antibody to block it. The antibody could curb metastasis in mice with certain type of tumors. In addition, frizzled-2 provides a promising new therapeutic target to prevent or delay metastasis, and both Frizzled-2 and Wnt5 are potential biomarkers that can be used to identify which patients are most at risk of metastasis and could benefit from frizzled-2-directed therapy.

They also found that Wnt and its receptor, Frizzled-2, were present at higher than normal levels in metastatic liver, breast, lung and colon cancer cell lines. In tissue samples from 48 cancer patients, Frizzled-2 was higher in late-stage cancers than in early-stage cancers. The team then painstakingly pieced together the players linking Wnt5 with the onset of metastatic behavior and discovered a previously unknown Wnt pathway. Frizzled-2 it turned out, could activate STAT3, which is known to drive cancer through.

The researchers are confident that their discovery can be translated into a novel therapeutic option for patients in the future.

Researchers from Johns Hopkins University have developed a new device which could monitor the metastasis of breast cancer cells. This finding allows scientists to watch and record the behaviour of cancer cells as they burrow through tissue, infiltrate blood vessels, and enter the blood stream to travel quickly and easily through the body. The study was published in Cancer Research.

More than 90 percent of cancer-related deaths are caused by metastatic cancer cells spreading around the body, however until now, scientists haven't been able to get a good, clear look at this complicated process.

Generally, this device allows researchers to look at the major steps of metastasis as well as to test different treatment strategies at relatively fast pace. If one way to stop one of these steps in the metastatic is cascaded, a new strategy may be found to slow down or even the spread of cancer.

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