Motorways for Metastasis

Metastasis, or the spread of cancer cells from the original tumour to a different organ, is the deadliest scenario for cancer patients, so understanding this process is a priority for medical science. In an exciting breakthrough, a team of researchers has identified a protein, dubbed Mena, which is instrumental in organising the cell migration involved in metastasis. A specific form of the protein, known as MenaINV, allows cancer cells (pictured in green), to re-arrange protein fibres such as collagen (in blue), facilitating their access to blood vessels (in red). For breast cancer patients at least, the presence of MenaINV in tumour cells, rather than the typical form of Mena, is associated with metastasis and earlier mortality, further highlighting the importance of this protein. More research into MenaINV could help develop means of assessing the potential for invasiveness of individual tumours, or even of blocking metastasis altogether.

Written by Emmanuelle Briolat

Emmanuelle Briolat

Writer

A researcher specialising in visual signals in Lepidoptera, camouflage and the effects of light pollution, Emmanuelle’s writing covers a range of topics, from biomedical research to children’s books about moth defences.

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• Image by Madeleine Oudin and Jeff Wyckoff
• David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MA, USA
• Image originally published under a Creative Commons NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States license (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US)
• Research published in Cancer Discovery, January 2016