Cell Rep: Scientists have successfully revealed the origins and new molecular mechanisms of cancer cell metastasis

December 6, 2020 // -- Before designing effective treatments, researchers must understand the specific effects of anticancer substances on cells or cell types that induce cancer metastasis in the heterogeneous nature of large tumors. Linking transcriptional groups to the metastasis esotypes of single cells in colon cancer tumors, they identified the importance of a gene called VSIG1 in cell-to-cell interactions, which can effectively inhibit cancer metastasis, and studies that may hopefully help scientists develop new treatments for cancer, while researchers have also confirmed that the new technology can detect drugs that fight cancer metastasis, including some individualized anti-cancer drugs.
Photo Source: © UNIGE/Ariel Ruiz i Altaba Currently, many cancer treatments often do not work well against cancer cell metastasis, and in fact the development of new therapies has become a joint effort by scientists around the world, which may have a significant impact on patient treatments that, in order for these treatments to become more effective, require only targeted cells that induce cancer metastasis.
tumors are often made up of heterogeneic cells, some of which induce metastasis, while others do not, so how do you target the right type of tumor cells to treat cancer? This may be a question that scientists need to delve into.
researcher Ruiz i Altaba said: 'In this study, we developed a new way to define cell esotype characteristics in tumors and clone and track these cells using cell-scale genomic analysis and subsequent mRNA expression information, where a cell's gene (or genotype) is first tweed into mRNA. It is then translated into proteins, which are visible forms of gene expression that act as the basis for cell-measurable properties (i.e., esotype characteristics); the researchers developed methods that identify missing parts of the tumor by linking the expressed genotype to the cell esotype, essentially wondering how the cells metastripe and where they come from.
By developing and utilizing the spiked-scRNAseq technique, researchers were able to successfully and accurately define the composition of tumor populations and determine their epigenetics at the cellular level, which combined histological methods with single-cell epi features and then added them to the original heterogeneous cell population.
First, the researchers genetically labeled multiple types of tumor cells so that they could observe the metastasis behavior of the cells well, and once the cell estype is determined, the same cloned cells can be added to the heterogeneous colon cancer primitive cell population, followed by single-cell sequencing, and by locking the metastatic cells into specific cell groups or clusters, the researchers were able to identify the molecular properties of the cells with metastasis properties.
based on this new method, researchers will be able to analyze the effects of drugs and their anti-cancer cell metastasis, in other words, they can use this method to analyze the effect of compounds on cells that induce metastasis in the patient's body.
Then the researchers used this method to analyze tumor behavior, and they began to determine the pre-metastasis status of the tumor and assess its metastasis potential, and the researchers found that when cells with metastasis esothypes were mixed with non-metastasis cells, the former blocked the latter metastasis, suggesting that limiting cell interactions was important for the formation of the cell metastasis process.
addition, the researchers noted key genes involved in signaling paths that are important for cell interactions and identified a gene called VSIG1, which is important for limiting interactions between non-metastasis tumor cells and metastasis tumor cells.
Finally, researcher Professor Silvano said that by expressing the gene in tumor cells, the ability of cells to metaste decreased both in vitro and in vivo experiments, and if the gene was removed, the level of metastasis of cancer cells would be increased.
using spiked-scRNAseq technology or the ability to analyze metastatic cells in primary tumors, and identifying the necessary genes and active drugs may also help scientists develop new and effective treatments for colon and other cancers.
() Original source: Carolina Bernal, Mariana Silvano, Yann Tapponnier, et al. Functional Pro-metastatic Heterogeneity Revealed by Spiked-scRNAseq Is Shaped by Cancer Cell Interactions and Restricted by VSIG1, Cell Reports (2020). DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2020.108372。