Scientists at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center have identified 16 genes that breast cancer cells use to survive in the bloodstream after they've escaped the low-oxygen regions of a tumor. Each is a potential therapeutic target to stop cancer recurrence, and one – MUC1 – is already in clinical trials. The research was published online September 28 in the journal Nature Communications .
Deep in a tumor, full of rapidly dividing cells, cancer cells are faced with a lack of oxygen, a condition called hypoxia. Cancer cells that survive these tough environments end up seeking what they missed, slowly making their way to the oxygen-rich bloodstream and often seeding metastasis elsewhere in the body, explains lead study author Daniele Gilkes, Ph.D.
, an assistant professor of oncology at Johns Hopkins. The team identified 16 genes responsible for this protection from reactive oxygen species, "which is a stress that occurs when the cells enter the bloodstream," Gilkes says. "Although the hypoxic cells are localized in what we call the perinecrotic region of a tumor -; meaning they're sitting right next to dead cells -; we think that they're able to migrate into higher [oxygen] levels where they can actually find the bloodstream," she says.
"Cells able to survive super-low oxygen concentrations do a better job of surviving in the bloodstream. This is how, even after a tumor is removed, we sometimes find that cancer cells have set up elsewhere in the body. Lower levels of oxyge.
