Cancer cells “remove the bandage” to spread

A new study has found that cancer cells spread by activating and deactivating the ability to sense their surroundings, move, hide and grow new tumors.

This sensitivity to the surrounding environment is the key skill that makes a small number of cancer cells more prevalent than other cells in a tumor, scientists at the University of Reading have found.

Researchers have developed a new method that combines evolutionary biology and artificial intelligence techniques to study the movement and shape of cancer cells in more detail than ever, to understand why some can move more easily to different parts of the body and grow new ones. tumors.

They found that some cells exhibited an apparent “awareness” and ability to react to their surroundings, which was previously thought to be lost to cancer. This means that they may be able to adapt their shape to overcome barriers such as blood vessel walls or other competing cells much more efficiently to replicate elsewhere.

The results, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, can help explain why some cancers are more aggressive than others, and may in the future allow doctors to target these “super cells” before they spread, giving future cancer patients a better chance of recovery.

George Butler, a University of Reading mathematical biologist who led the study, said: “Unlike healthy human cells, cancer cells were thought to lose sense of their surroundings early in cancer progression. which means that they are effectively bandaged from their surroundings., focusing instead on replicating to form the primary tumor.Our observations showed for the first time that some cancer cells are able to reactivate this awareness by removing the bandage to form the primary tumor. help them move to other locations more efficiently.

‘These more space-aware cells react by changing shape when they encounter objects, possibly allowing them to slip past other cells, through membranes into the bloodstream and into other parts of the body, where they revert to replication mode and new tumors form.’

The scientists first subjected a sample of breast cancer cells through a natural selection process in order to evolve sets with enhanced movements or colonization traits.

Some cells were put into an “obstacle course”, mimicking movement around a human body, with the most successful cells separated into a group with strong mobility traits. Others have been allowed to grow into a small piece of rat lung, similar to the type of tissue in which tumors form, to form a group of strong colonizers.

The two groups of cells were compared with a control group in the lab so that scientists could examine the differences between them in detail to understand what makes some better at moving than others.

A computer program was used to observe the behavior of cells in plastic dishes, to analyze their shape and movement much more quickly than a human being can.

It was seen that the mobile group of cells that were closer together changed shape more rapidly to avoid neighboring cells, while they changed shape less frequently in more scattered environments. This suggests that they are able to increase or decrease their spatial awareness depending on their surroundings to make them more efficient in all environments.

The new machine vision analysis methods developed by the team could also be used in other contexts, for example to measure blood clot formation or monitor sperm movements.