2 min readResearch Reveals Pathway of Metastasizing Cancer Cells

Zurich, Switzerland – It is not primary tumours that are responsible for the majority of cancer deaths, but rather their metastases.
Physiologists and neuropathologists from the University of Zurich have now identified the origin of metastasis formation, thereby becoming the first to reveal the pathway of metastasizing intestinal cancer cells out of the blood stream. The results allow new approaches in the development of cancer therapies.
Every year, over seven million people die of cancer worldwide. Thanks to more effective therapy and better early detection, primary tumours are only responsible for ten percent of cancer deaths in industrial nations. Nowadays, the vast majority die from the consequences of metastasis, namely secondary tumours. These develop from metastases of the primary tumour by spreading via the patient’s bloodstream. Until now, the actual reason for the metastatic spread in certain organs was unknown, it being unclear as to how the secondary cells were able to enter the tissue of other organs from the bloodstream.
Now, a European team headed by physiologists and neuropathologists from the University of Zurich have identified the mechanism that helps metastasizing intestinal cancer cells to infiltrate the organs from the blood vessels. Lubor Borsig and Mathias Heikenwalder’s team demonstrate that cancer cells manipulate specific “doorman receptors” on the endothelium of the blood vessels.
Tumour cells manipulate blood-vessel doorman
New approach for drug development
“The mechanism discovered will yield a completely new approach for the development of drugs to combat metastasis in breast, prostate and bowel cancer,” Borsig is convinced. Suppressing the tumor’s chemokine expression or blocking the doorman for the tumor chemokine to inhibit any more cancer cells from entering healthy tissue from the bloodstream is conceivable. “If we can succeed in preventing the cancer cells from leaving the bloodstream, the metastasis can be fought directly at the source,” concludes Borsig.