Por Jonas Fuxe (Karolinska Institutet).

Metastatic spread of cancer cells is the major cause of death in cancer. Unfortunately, the metastatic process is incompletely understood and consequently, there is a lack of treatments that target metastasis. Thus, there is a great need to elucidate mechanisms underlying cancer metastasis. Recent data show that epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is a driving force for metastasis. EMT is induced by inflammatory cytokines and represents a link between tumor-associated inflammation and metastasis. Recent data from our research group show that breast cancer cells that undergo EMT adopt properties of immune cells. We find this highly interesting since immune cells are the only cells that have the same capacity as metastatic tumor cells to migrate and home to distant sites in our bodies.

We hypothesize that breast cancer cells undergoing EMT acquire immune cell properties allowing them to traffic through tissues and vessels and home to lymph nodes and distant sites similar to activated immune cells during inflammation. A major aim of our research is therefore to identify and target EMT-induced immune cell properties that mediate metastatic spread of breast cancer cells. We are also exploring the possibility to use EMT markers as a novel type of diagnostic tool for future precision medicine. We expect the results from our studies to provide novel insight into cancer metastasis and to identify targets for a new type of anti-metastatic cancer therapy.

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