Researchers in Belgium discovered that a molecule released by brain immune cells helps cancer invade healthy tissue, allowing them to reduce tumour invasive capacity in mice.
Glioblastoma, the most aggressive brain tumour in adults, is notoriously difficult to treat due to cancer spread into the surrounding brain tissue, which prevents complete removal.
Researchers from EARA member the VIB-KU Leuven Center for Cancer Biology investigated the interaction between brain immune cells (microglia) and glioblastoma. They discovered that microglia released lipids, including lysophosphatidylcholines (LPCs) and lysophosphatidic acids (LPAs), that bound to tumour cells and activated cellular pathways – cascades of interactions between molecules – that made cells more mobile.
Mice that had been injected in the brain with glioblastoma cells and subsequently given food containing a drug that decreased the abundance of microglia cells had less invasive tumours than untreated mice. In experiments in mouse and patient-derived glioblastoma cells, the researchers blocked the LPA receptor and found that blocking LPA reduced the invasion capacity of tumour cells in both.
“It was rather surprising to see how closely the mechanism we found in mice was reproduced in human glioblastoma, which suggests the findings could translate to patients,” said Carla Pallarés-Moratalla, researcher at VIB-KU Leuven and lead author of the study published in Cancer Cell. “Although the size of the tumor did not change, these results raise the possibility of treating patients before surgery to make their tumors more contained and easier to remove,” she added.
Carla Pallarés-Moratalla and Gabriele Bergers. CREDITS: VIB