Tumor cells eliminating their neighbors using a newly discovered mechanism

How do tumoral cells replace healthy cells to promote tumor progression? Scientists from the Institut Pasteur (Paris, France) and from the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown (Lisbon, Portugal) identified a mechanism that responds to cell deformation and can be exploited by tumoral cells to squeeze out and kill their neighbors. This mechanism may promote the early expansion of tumors.

Despite decades of cancer research, the early phases of tumor progression that connect the appearance of few abnormal cells to the formation of a clinically detectable tumor mass remains poorly understood. It was previously proposed that certain mutations could give a competitive advantage to a subset of cells that would enable them to kill and replace their neighbors, thereby initiating a cancerous tumor. Yet, the mechanisms at the basis of such competition were not clear. Researchers from the Institut Pasteur and the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown, have just discovered a new mechanism that may explain how tumoral cells can eliminate their neighbors and spread throughout the body.

Find out more