September 19, 2023
Introduction:
Read more of the Eurekalert article here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1002003(Eurekalert) Most solid tumors become stiff as the cancer progresses. Although researchers recognize that the environment around the cancer cells influences their behavior, it is unclear how it does so. In a new paper, published in Scientific Data, researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have collected gene expression data in response to mechanical stiffness in tumors. Their work can help guide our understanding of the crosstalk between cancer cells and their surroundings.
Historically, researchers have focused on how cancer cell genes change their expression over time. Based on this information, scientists have developed several therapeutic strategies, and yet over 600,000 people die every year in the US alone.
“We haven’t made as much progress as we would have liked against cancer,” said Bashar Emon, a postdoctoral researcher of mechanical science and engineering in the Saif (M-CELS/RBTE) lab. “Even with all the advances, the patient survival rate has not improved proportionately, when you consider how much research and funding has gone into studying cancer.”
As a result, there has been a recent push to understand the tumor environment holistically. Cancer cells are surrounded by non-cancerous stromal cells, the most abundant of which are the cancer-associated fibroblasts. Although researchers have recognized that CAFs play a role in metastasis, they do not understand which signals are involved in the process.
“In this paper we focused on the tumor microenvironment because it becomes stiffer with time and we know that CAFs can sense this change,” Emon said. “We wanted to understand how they convey this information to cancer cells.”
For a technical presentation as published in Science: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-023-02233-9
