Interactions between the gut microbiome and immune system influence cancer immune surveillance, though the mechanism through which these gut-primed immune cells regulate peripheral antitumor immune response is not well understood. Now, two recent studies in Science and Science Immunology using mouse models and human tissue samples have highlighted a group of intestinal T cells with the gut-homing α4β7 integrin receptors that play a critical role in mediating response to immune checkpoint blockade cancer immunotherapy.
By interfering with mitochondrial plasticity, researchers have succeeded in attenuating brain metastases of HER2-expressing breast tumors. The authors wrote that their findings “highlight targeting mitochondrial dynamics is a viable therapeutic opportunity to limit both brain tumors and metastasis.”
Researchers from Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hospital and affiliated organizations published data from a study that aimed to explore the mechanism of prostate cancer (PCa) metastasis to discover an intrinsic biomarker for metastatic PCa (mPCa).
Previous studies have shown that ovarian cancer (OC) has strong tumor heterogeneity, resulting in high recurrence and metastasis rates. In recently published work, researchers from Capital Medical University (CMU) applied single-cell transcriptomics to identify metastasis-associated cell clusters and key genes involved in OC metastasis.
It is known that in melanoma, transformed melanocytic cells acquire stem cell-like features; these cells have multilineage differentiation potential, thus allowing them to morph into cell states with neural crest cell (NCC)-like, epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition-like features, promoting its metastatic potential.
Previous studies have implicated OBSCN in breast tumorigenesis and have also demonstrated that low OBSCN levels correlate with significantly reduced overall and relapse-free survival in breast cancer patients. In a recent study, researchers from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center aimed to investigate the mechanisms involved in the regulation of OBSCN.
Startup Metsystem ApS received €500,000 (US$529,080) from Denmark’s Bioinnovation Institute (BII) that will allow the company to conduct trials to validate its personalized prognosis platform for cancer metastasis. An organ-specific assessment of the metastasis potential of a patient’s primary tumor would enable clinicians to better balance the trade-off between providing the potentially life-extending benefit of preventative chemotherapy to those at higher risk and avoiding the adverse effects from chemotherapy in those who are unlikely to need it.
Recent findings unveiled that high serum levels of the molecular marker microRNA 371 correlate with the clinical stage and metastasis of seminomas (tumor of the testis germ cells) and nonseminomas. The expression of miR-371a-3p was evaluated in a cohort of patients with stage IIA/B seminoma and nonseminoma. Expression of miR-371a-3p was found to be positive in all 12 metastatic patients with seminoma or nonseminoma and was negative in 3 out of 4 nonmetastatic cases.
Pancreatic cancer still remains a highly lethal disease, with a 5-year survival rate of <10%. It is characterized by strong stromal activation leading to pro-tumorigenic extracellular matrix deposition. Recent findings in preclinical models have unveiled that targeting desmoplasia may improve chemotherapy efficacy and impede metastasis in pancreatic cancer.
In advanced or metastatic prostate cancer (PCa), patients may reach a stage where they do not respond to therapy. This stage is associated with chromosomal instability (CIN) and allow cells, up to a certain threshold, to adapt to therapy. However, a Mayo Clinic study has found a way to push that line so that cancer cells are so aberrant that they die.
