​Study Reveals How Cancer Cells Spread From Primary Tumour

According to a recent study that appeared in Nature Cell Biology journal, researchers have found a signalling pathway in cancer cells that controls their ability to invade nearby tissues in a finely orchestrated manner.

The study also sheds light on the spread of cancer to distant tissues and organs, which also complicates cancer treatment.

A cancer cell must first break through the surrounding connective tissue, also known as the extracellular matrix (ECM), to migrate from a primary tumour.

The cancer forms short-lived, foot-like protrusions, known as invadopodia, to invade.

Invadopodia release enzymes that degrade the extracellular matrix (ECM). Other protrusions pull the cancer cell along, much like a locomotive pulls a train.

The invading cancer cell relies on the cycle of invadopodium formation/disappearance to successfully travel from the tumour. It enters nearby blood vessels to spread in other parts of the body.

Louis Hodgson, an assistant professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University in the US, said that at times, invadopodia could be driven by protein filaments called actin.
Image: Thinstock