What is it about?
Tumors contain more than tumor cells so called stromal cells. Macrophages in tumors are one of the stromal cells which trigger tumor cells to grow and migrate to other organs. We have investigated a new pathway in macrophages, and blockade of which intervene into their tumor-promoting function. Treatment with a drug inhibiting this pathway reduced the tumor progression and spreading of tumor cells to other organs.
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Why is it important?
Most cancer-related deaths are due to metastasis because secondary tumors are difficult to remove. In primary tumors, macrophages feed tumor cells with cytokines and activate them to migrate. Our findings show that inhibition of a specific pathway in macrophages inhibits tumor cells migration. This can be a novel therapy to inhibit metastasis in breast tumor patients but might also be applicable for other cancers.
Perspectives
This work I started with my PhD student Karin Postma, with an idea to find a novel strategy to modulate macrophages. It took a while before reaching to this point when we really demonstrated that by regulating a specific pathway in macrophages we could hamper the spreading of tumor cells. I hope we have made a small step to the complex but emerging field of tumor biology and immune modulation.
Jai Prakash
Universiteit Twente
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Targeting the Stat6 pathway in tumor-associated macrophages reduces tumor growth and metastatic niche formation in breast cancer, The FASEB Journal, February 2018, Federation of American Societies For Experimental Biology (FASEB),
DOI: 10.1096/fj.201700629r.
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