Nature Subsidiary: Scientists have discovered the key to inhibiting breast cancer metastasis

Nature Subsidiary: Scientists have discovered the key to inhibiting breast cancer metastasis

August 29, 2018 Source: Academic Jingwei

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If you want to make a ranking for the disease, according to the "terror" to rank the disease, cancer must be ranked in the top. The reason why cancer can be called the "king of all diseases" is not without reason. Its horror is that cancer cells can grow wildly in the body, and can bloom everywhere and appear to metastasize. Once the cancer is metastasized, the patient's survival rate will drop dramatically, which is almost equivalent to being sentenced to death.

Some people may ask, can we have no way to transfer cancer cells? To be honest, our approach is really not much. We either rely on the liquid biopsy techniques invented by scientists. Like Holmes, we look for cancer cells that are metastasized in the blood, or their DNA, to give patients early warning, to find early, to treat early; or, we only We can use the precision-guided weapons brought by new drug developers to launch raids on all cancer cells and remove the roots.

But these methods are more or less flawed. On the one hand, we may not find the metastasis of cancer in time; on the other hand, anticancer drugs may also leave fish missing, causing hidden dangers. If there is any way to prevent the cancer cells that are trying to transfer from taking root, like the customs anti-drug, it would be good.

This week, in the Nature journal Biology, a multinational team from the Garvan Institute in Australia and the Brigham and Women's Hospital in the United States found that breast cancer would lift its own feet and prevent cancer from spreading. ! According to some reports, this study is a breakthrough in the field of breast cancer, and there is hope for advanced breast cancer patients to tide over the difficulties.

We know that breast cancer is a serious health crisis for women. It is estimated that in the Australian where the researchers are located, eight women die every day because of breast cancer. The important reason for this is the metastasis of breast cancer – this is because the effects of existing therapies are greatly reduced after the transfer.

Interestingly, although the word "cancer metastasis" is often mentioned, it is less likely to occur in breast cancer. Researchers have found that in the early stages of cancer, many cancer cells leave the tumor, marching all over the body, and waiting for the time to mature, creating new tumors in various parts of the body. But in reality, only about 0.02% of cancer cells actually develop into tumors. The remaining 99.98%, why did the transfer fail?

The research team speculated that the original tumor may have some effect on the body, limiting the spread of cancer cells. To test this idea, the researchers did an experiment. First, they introduced tumors in mice and, after two weeks, injected cancer cells intravenously to mimic the process of tumor spread. Sure enough, once a mouse has formed a tumor in advance, new cancer cells are not easy to take root in the body of the mouse. In contrast, if the mouse initially received a placebo and did not form a tumor in the body, the cancer cells that were injected intravenously would be raging everywhere.

What is the principle of this? The researchers conducted further analysis of the lung tissue of mice and found that whether tumors were already present in the body when injected with cancer cells would have a significant impact on gene expression patterns. If tumors have grown in mice, their signaling pathways associated with leukocyte migration are activated. Consistent with the expression pattern, in the body of these mice, the researchers also found that the number of neutrophils is four times that of the control group!

And these neutrophils are the key to inhibiting cancer metastasis! In another experiment, scientists have tried to reduce the number of neutrophils. After inhibition of Ly6G, the number of neutrophils in mice containing tumors in vivo decreased to a level similar to that of the control group. And once the number of neutrophils declines, the magic of mice suppressing the rooting of cancer cells disappears—in the lungs of mice, researchers have observed a large number of cancer metastases.

Knowing the importance of neutrophils, the team retired to find the key to promoting neutrophil production. By comparing gene expression patterns, the researchers found that IL-1β levels were significantly elevated in the lungs of cancer-bearing mice. This result is very reasonable because IL-1β is a pro-inflammatory cytokine associated with neutrophils.

Fortunately, in subsequent experiments, the researchers also discovered other effects of IL-1β. On the one hand, it promotes the infiltration of macrophages. On the other hand, it also inhibits the differentiation of "cancer seeds" and prevents cancer cells from taking root in other parts.

In summary, the researchers proposed such a succinct model—in the body of the tumor, many cells will detach and go all over the body to find fertile soil suitable for transfer. But native tumors also stimulate the immune system and produce an inflammatory response. Cancer cells scattered throughout the body will be "frozen" under the active immune system and immune cells, and will not continue to grow. As a result, they will not be able to successfully become new tumors.

“When these cells just landed, but they have not yet become new tumors, they are very fragile,” said Professor Christine Chaffer, one of the authors of the study. “They are in an intermediate state and have not yet formed. The immune system can intervene."

"When cancer cells are forced to stay in the intermediate state, they don't grow very well, so the ability to form new tumors can be greatly affected," added another author of the study, Professor Sandra McAllister, adding: "So the original A tumor can actually activate the immune system and inhibit its spread."

Importantly, this discovery made in mice may also be useful for humans. The researchers found that in 215 breast cancer patients with metastatic risk, patients with higher levels of IL-1β expression in the tumor had a better prognosis. To this end, scientists are looking forward to making good use of this discovery, reducing the risk of 0.02% of secondary tumor formation to 0%!

In this era of precision medicine, the discovery of a gene and a protein may bring about a new cancer breakthrough. For scientists who have worked quietly in the lab for many years, this may be the meaning of their travel on the scientific road.

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