A research team at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has discovered that, pancreatic cancer often spreads and metastasizes in the liver or lungs. The prognosis is said to be better for patients with metastases in the lungs. However, the organ that is more likely to be affected depends on the cancer cells’ ability to alter their characteristics and shape.
Cells in a tissue or tumor establish contacts with other cells and assume a scale-like appearance. Such cells modify their metabolism and detach themselves from the cluster of cells making up the tumor. As a result, they become long and thin, which allows them to enter nearby blood vessels, using them as a transport route to reach other organs and proliferate in tissue there.
The cells then must transform themselves once again, in order to re-establish contacts with other cells. Not all cancer cells possess flexibility, technically known as plasticity.
Dr. Maximilian Reichert, lead author of the new study and research group leader in the Internal Medicine Unit II of TUM University Hospital Klinikum rechts der Isar, discovered this phenomena and its consequences, mainly for pancreatic cancer. The study’s findings were published in the journal Developmental Cell.
When the protein was present and functional, the cancer cells were also able to invade the liver. Researchers believed that, the cancer cells are able to take hold and colonize in liver tissue, due to close cell-to-cell contacts established with the help of E-cadherin. By altering the presence of E-cadherin, the research team was able to control the metastasis process in mice.