Does Cell Movement Help Detect Cancer Cells ?

Cell motion may hold the key to identifying and stopping cancer.

What if the key to defeating cancer lies in how a cell moves? Imagine if something as fundamental as a wiggle or a stretch could tell us whether a cell is healthy or deadly. Scientists are now peering into the elegant dance of cells—guided by amoebas, worms, and even zebrafish—to crack one of medicine’s toughest mysteries: how cancer spreads. Buckle in for a journey through the microscopic world where motion speaks louder than mutations ().

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‘Did You Know?
Cancer cells mimic ancient cell movement patterns to spread. #cellmigration #medindia ’

Language of Movement: How Cancer Cells Betray Themselves

Metastasis is a significant challenge in cancer treatment, and cellmotility is a fundamental cellular behavior that contributes to it. Studying cell motility in non-mammalian model organisms like Dictyostelium discoideum, Caenorhabditis elegans, Drosophila melanogaster, and Danio rerio provides insights into cell movement in complex environments. These organisms offer insights into the signaling network, basement membrane invasion, E-cadherin's role, and the optimization of kinase inhibitors for metastatic thyroid cancer.

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Lessons from Tiny Teachers: Model Organisms in Cancer Research

Drosophila melanogaster is a powerful model for studying cell migration and tumor metastasis, with mutations causing metastatic behavior in the 1970s. It studies cell migration types and membrane blebbing, which is part of cancer cell motility behaviors.

Decision Circuit of Cancer Metastasis Decoded
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When Movement Means Survival: From Insight to Intervention

Zebrafish is a cost-efficient model system for studying tumor-related diseases, offering potential for high-throughput screening and personalized treatments. Its studies on D. discoideum, D. melanogaster, and C. elegans reveal complex signaling networks driving chemokine-directed cell motility and systemic factors promoting abnormal cell growth. However, open questions remain, such as promoting antitumour T cell migration while inhibiting metastasis-promoting cell motility.

Reference:

Cell motility in cancer invasion and metastasis: insights from simple model organisms- (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6790333/)

Source-University of Turku, Finland

Self-perpetuating Signaling Circuit can Drive Tumor Cells to Spread
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