Exploring the Spread of Cancer to the Brain

Microfluidic devices track what happens to cancer cells as they migrate in the brain.

Researchers leveraged microfluidic chips to study how cancer cell migrates to the blood-brain niche. Results are published in the journal Advanced NanoBiomed Research.

Using breast cancer cell lines, they found that Dkk-1, a cytokine released by the astrocytes, triggers the cancer cells to migrate. Dkk-1 is known to play a role in in Wnt signaling, a key signaling pathway linked to cancer progression.

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“Crosstalk between brain niche cells and cancer cells allows invading cancer cells to permeate the blood-brain barrier. Reducing Dkk-1 levels near invading tumor cells might disrupt this crosstalk and prevent brain metastases,” said corresponding author Christopher R. Oliver, Ph.D., a post-doctoral fellow in the Merajver Lab.

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‘Deciphering how cancer cells thrive or fail in the brain niche sheds insights into new therapies aiming molecular processes. ’

Additional authors: Trisha M. Westerhof, Benjamin A. Yang, Nathan M. Merill, Joel A. Yates, Megan Altemus, Liam Russell, Anna J. Miller, Liwei Bao, Zhifen Wu, Peter J. Ulintz, Carlos A. Aguilar, Aki Morikawa, Maria G. Castro.

Funding for this work is from National Institutes of Health grants UL1TR002240, T32CA009676, 1R21CA245597-01, P30CA046592, 5T32CA009676-23, CA196018, AI116482; METAvivor Foundation, and the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

This work was supported by these Rogel Cancer Center Shared Resources: Cancer Data Science, Cell and Tissue Imaging, Flow Cytometry, Immune Monitoring.

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Source-Eurekalert

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