Discovery of how metastatic cancer cells infiltrate liver - Labiotech.eu

A group of researchers including Truong Huu Hoang and Norifumi Kadawa from the Osaka Metropolitan University Graduate School of Medicine, and Misako Matsubara from the Graduate School of Veterinary Science, has identified an alternative pathway for liver metastasis, showing that cancer cells invade via intracellular gap formation in endothelial cells, and clarified the molecular mechanism involved. .

Furthermore, using electron microscopy and 3D tomography reconstruction, the researchers showed that cancer cells extended their projections directly into the intracellular gaps of LSECs, allowing them to infiltrate the liver tissue.

They found a positive correlation between the number of intracellular gaps in the LSECs and the number of new metastatic liver tumors that formed in the mice.

Matsubara said: “In this study, we discovered a new phenomenon related to metastasis: cancer cells induce LSEC intracellular gap formation and infiltrate the liver through those gaps!