IMMUNITY to CANCERS or IN-UNITY to CANCERS?
What should we expect next?
What should we expect next?
A while ago, I reported in one of my Posts (see March 13, 2011: Latest News on Immunity and Cancer) an interesting study documenting new and unexpected relationships between the Immune System and Cancer. That study was the result of a collaboration between Scientists in the United Kingdom and Italy (University of Bristol & Institute of Molecular Oncology in Milan).
They documented how early-stage cancers were less likely to spread if the fighters of the Immune System, the white blood cells, were prevented from contacting cancer cells. In other words, immune cells seemed to provide some type of growth signal for cancer precursor cells. This would mean that the cancer could co-opt the innate Immune Defense System to aid its own growth.
In line with these findings, very recent News report now that Immune cells, the Macrophages, could help cancers to Metastasize. Probably, 'help' would not be the right word. Indeed, doing their job, that is, detecting and destroying 'the intruder', they happen to favor the evolution of cancer cells to metastatic cells, while 'chewing' their way through the tissue barriers for reaching the cancer site. The scientific findings were published on Cancer Research, a Journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.
The study, led by Prof David Waisman, was made at Dalhousie University, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. The Scientists observed the key role played by a cell surface protein of Macrophages, called S100A10, in allowing them to move to the site of tumor growth, an essential process in tumor development. The S100A10 protein seems to act like a kind of scissors in opening the way of Macrophages to the tumor site.
Indeed, they discovered that tumors do not grow and evolve without the assistance of Macrophages. In theory, inhibiting Macrophages' migration and activity or chemically blocking the protein S100A10, tumor growth could be slowed or halted.
The next step in their research will consist in determining more precisely how the protein S100A10 works and in identifying pharmaceutical agents that can block its activity, thereby preventing the migration of macrophages from the blood or from other tissues locations to the tumor site.
These findings further contribute to make us all Researchers interested in dismantling Cancer reflect on the puzzling and complicated Biology of Cancer and encourage us to look at it with new eyes abandoning old and tried paths.
You may want to read the original article:
K. D. Phipps, A. P. Surette, P. A. O'Connell, D. M. Waisman. Plasminogen Receptor S100A10 Is Essential for the Migration of Tumor-Promoting Macrophages into Tumor Sites. Cancer Research, 2011; 71 (21): 6676
You may also Visit :
http://www.sciencedaily.com/ see: "Key driver of Metastasis identified" ScienceDaily (Oct. 31, 2011)
http://esciencenews.com/sources/science.daily/2011/10/31/key.driver.metastasis.identified
http://esciencenews.com/sources/science.daily/2011/10/31/key.driver.metastasis.identified
