Red labeled JHU12
head and neck carcinoma cells are migrating on CAF-derived extracellular matrix
(green).
Images were taken every 10 minutes for 3 hours using a confocal
microscope.
(December 13, 2015) At
ASCB 2015, Vanderbilt researchers show how metastasizing tumors use
non-cancerous fibroblasts to make a migration highway through surrounding
extracellular matrix.
To get moving, metastasizing cancer needs to enlist
non-cancerous collaborators. Suspicions about where these secret cancer allies
might be lurking have long been directed at the fibroblasts, the cells that
secrete and organize the extracellular matrix (ECM), the ground on which
surrounding cells can get a grip. Increasing evidence suggests that fibroblasts
near growing tumors are actively assisting cancer cells in spreading locally
and metastasizing elsewhere. But exactly how these cancer-associated
fibroblasts (CAFs) provide aid to the cancer enemy was not known until a recent
discovery by Begum Erdogan and colleagues in Donna Webb’s lab at Vanderbilt
University—CAFs clear a highway through the ECM for migrating cancer cells. The
researchers will present their work at ASCB 2015 in San Diego on Sunday,
December 13 and Tuesday, December 15.
The roadway that CAFs arrange is made of parallel fibers of
fibronectin (Fn), a major protein in the ECM mix secreted by all fibroblasts.
The Vanderbilt researchers observed CAFs rearranging Fn into parallel bundles
instead of the dense mesh that normal tissue fibroblasts (NAFs) make. Taking
cancer cells grown from prostate as well as head and neck tumors, the
researchers plated them on ECM from CAFs and NAFs. The cancer cells on the CAF
matrix were better at moving in a single direction.