A novel mechanism that allows cancer cells to spread throughout the body has been discovered by an international team of researchers, offering a potential new target to halt metastasis, which is to blame for 90% of cancer deaths.
The team’s results, which were published in Nature, show that cancer cells undergo a shift when lymph drainage is impaired by a primary tumor, causing them to be surrounded by thicker fluids.
According to John D. Lewis, professor, and holder of the Bird Dogs Chair in Translational Oncology at the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry, “this is really the first time that the viscosity of the extracellular fluid has been looked at in detail.”
“This is really the first time that the viscosity of the extracellular fluid has been looked at in detail,” says John D. Lewis, professor and Bird Dogs Chair in Translational Oncology at the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry.
We may be able to use medications to essentially short-circuit that signaling system and encourage cancer cells to slow down, or even halt, now that we are aware that fluid viscosity signals cancer cells to move in a specific way.
Crucial imaging know-how: The Lewis group was asked to participate in the experiment run by scientists at Johns Hopkins University because of its proficiency in photographing human cancer cells in real-time motion using the membrane from fertilized chicken eggs that resembles a placenta.
Lewis, who is also a member of the Cancer Research Institute of Northern Alberta, describes it as basically a translucent, highly vascularized membrane that we can then insert human cancer cells into. We can connect it with a microscope and capture time-lapse photographs of individual cells migrating, moving, and responding to changes since it is flat.
Lewis asserts that “I’d argue we’re the global leaders in this form of imaging.” Our contribution to the paper consisted of clearly demonstrating how cancer cells modify their gene expression and become more aggressive when they come into contact with more viscous fluid. And these cells continue to be more aggressive even after the viscosity is reduced.
We went on to demonstrate that cancer cells’ capacity to exit the bloodstream and spread is altered when this signaling pathway is disturbed.
Lewis is also the founder and CEO of Entos Pharmaceuticals, which is creating a COVID-19 vaccine that can be kept in a refrigerator and is therefore more convenient to deliver in low- and middle-income countries than the vaccines already on the market. In Burkina Faso, it started Phase 2 clinical trials in September, but development was halted due to a coup. According to Lewis, the trial might be moved to Senegal, and Canada might also test the vaccine as a booster shot.
