New breakthrough of cancer is expected to provide new therapy

Dr. Stéphanie Kermorgant from Barts Cancer Institute of Queen Mary College, London, UK (QMUL) and colleagues started to study what would happen to cancer cells without cell culturing from zebrafish and mouse. They found that the "integration" - protein that the cell surface and the surrounding tissues combine and have communication - plays an important role in the process of primary tumor remaining viable. The team explained that the known integrins participate in the "outside-in" and "inside-out" signaling, which helps cancer cells combine with surrounding tissues. Researchers got the results with the use of recombinant rat proteins and recombinant dog proteins.

However, they found that in the process of metastasis, the way the integrin takes is the signaling of "from the inside-in", which a signaling defense form is happening in cells. Integrin β1 and a protein known as c-Met accompanied each other in cancer cells during metastasis, the authors explained. Then, these two proteins move to a specific site within the cell, usually the parts of degrading and recycling cellular components. However, these two proteins make use of this site to send signal to other sites of cancer cells, triggering defense mechanisms of cell death. The researchers said it was the first time to identify the specific process of cancer metastasis. Various recombinant proteins such as recombinant Folh1 play their roles.

Next, the research team began to study what would happen if blocking β1 and c-Met two proteins into cells or transferred to a desired site of the anti-signal. In the test process of breast and lung cancer cells, the researcher found that the cells are less likely to metastasis, suggesting that β1 and c-Met played a vital role in the development of breast cancer. Dr. Kermorgant and his colleagues believed that their findings suggested that, preventing β1 from entering the cancer cells at the very start may be an effective way to fight cancer metastasis.

Integrin inhibitors have been used as a method of cancer therapy and have been tested. At present, the drug can be targeted to the function of integrin signaling activity of the surface of cancer cells. The research team said that this may explain why the efficacy of these drugs is so poor.

"Cancer metastasis is currently no cure and it is still one of the main goals of cancer research. Our research updates relevant knowledge on how the two key molecules communicate and survive and play their role together in cancer metastasis. "We hope this research can develop new drugs for preventing the spread of cancer in the body." Dr. Stéphanie Kermorgant says.