Researchers can now identify cancer cells leading to tumor recurrence
Cancer cells escaping tumors in the brain avoid surgery and create new recurrent tumors, but now researchers from the University of Copenhagen and Rigshospitalet have identified and characterized these cells. This can lead to new strategies for treatment.
Professor at the University of Copenhagen and Consultant at Rigshospitalet, Bjarne Winther Kristensen, has seen it over and over again: Tumors reemerging in a patient’s brain only a few months after the patient went through surgery to have the original tumor removed. As a researcher he knew that some cancer cells escape the main tumor and infiltrate the neighboring tissue allowing the cancer to return, although little is known about these infiltrating cells. Until now.
In a study recently published in the scientific journal Nature Communications, Bjarne Winther Kristensen and his colleagues have identified which types of cancer cells spread across the brain in glioblastoma patients, the most aggressive brain cancer.
“These cells are the ones remaining after the patients undergo surgery. Understanding which biological pathways are active in these cells is crucial for identifying how we can get rid of them. Our study provides insight into what is different about these cells compared to those that stay within the tumor” says Dylan Harwood, PhD student at BRIC and first author of the study.
This study explores how infiltrating cells spread across the brain, and not to be confused with metastasis spreading in the bloodstream. Read the study "Glioblastoma cells increase expression of notch signaling and synaptic genes within infiltrated brain tissue" here.
Act like brain cells to hide
In the study the researchers compare the cells in the tumor with the cancer cells in the neighboring brain tissue. They find that the infiltrating cells imitate the profile of neural stem cells and have the potential to form a new tumor shortly after.
Understanding which biological pathways are active in these cells is crucial for identifying how we can get rid of them.
“The stem cells are designed to generate new cells to replace those we naturally lose and what we learned from our study is that by imitating the stem cells’ processes the infiltrating cells are able to move through the tissue, to grow and to divide,” says Bjarne Winther Kristensen.
The researchers show that similar to non-cancer stem cells, these cancer cells express different genes dependent on where they are located.
“You can compare their gene expression to what ‘tools’ they currently need to use. Whether the cell is infiltrating the brain or involved in building the tumor require different sets of tools. These tools, or the genes that we measure, give information about which type of cell they are, but also what they are doing, sensing and require to survive. By understanding the tools they need, we can begin to think of ways to block or target them with therapeutics,” says Dylan Harwood.
Technology paves the way to new treatment methods
Until recently, no technology allowed for studying the cells at such a detailed molecular level. But by combining the unique tissue samples from glioblastoma-patients, and the cutting-edge technology spatial transcriptomics, this allowed the researchers to map where cells express which genes.
“Our goal and hopes are to test therapeutics on patients within five years. We hope to see a match between our findings and already approved therapeutics. Our study is an important step in the direction of future therapeutics using personalized medicine” says Bjarne Winther Kristensen.