New research gives hope for breakthrough cancer treatment
15 March 2009
New research into the interaction between normal cells and transformed cells has given hope to uncovering an effective treatment for cancer.
A study funded by the Medical Research Council, available online and due to be published in Nature Cell Biology in April, examined the boundary between normal cells and transformed cells (transformed cells can result in cancer). The results showed that transformed cells change their shape and are removed from the tissues when surrounded by normal cells.
Lead author Yasuyuki Fujita, from the MRC Laboratory for Molecular Cell Biology at University College London, said: “The research could help us understand how cancer initiates and develops, and further studies into this behaviour could help find ways of treating cancer effectively.”
Scientists also identified signalling pathways which are activated in transformed cells when surrounded by normal cells, but not when they were surrounded by other transformed cells. The activity in the transformed cells and the cell-to-cell contact with surrounding normal cells influenced the way the transformed cells behaved.
Dr Fujita said: “It is not clear how these signalling pathways that regulate cells’ behaviour are activated in transformed cells or how transformed cells can sense the differences in normal cells. This will require further investigation. Our findings, however, show that transformed cells are excluded, either apically or basally, from a monolayer of surrounding normal cells. When the transformed cells are basally excluded, the cancer spreads; when they are apically excluded, the progression of cancer stops – the result we were seeking.”
The research is novel in that the scientists focused on the interaction between normal and transformed cells. In the past most research has focused only on transformed cancer cells and overlooked the fact that mutations occur in a cell which is surrounded by normal cells.
“By further studying molecular mechanisms involved, we may be able to invent a novel type of cancer treatment to exclude cancer cells from the body using the help of surrounding normal cells,” Dr Fujita said.
Notes:
Characterization of the interface between normal and transformed epithelial cells is published online DOI: 10.1038/ncb1853
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