Blood Vessel Blocker

As a tumour grows its need for a blood supply drives certain cells in the tumour to form blood vessels. Now, researchers have found a microRNA – a tiny RNA that regulates gene activity – that inhibits such vascularisation and might therefore help prevent tumour growth. These images show endothelial cells (red) – the type that line blood vessels – growing on fibrous protein beads (for support) in culture. On the left, the cells are growing normally, with some of the cells forming sprouting structures equivalent to developing blood vessels. On the right, however, the cells have been treated with the microRNA and sprouting is suppressed. In tumours, high levels of this RNA was associated with better patient outcome, while in mice, boosting levels of the RNA prevented tumour growth. These results pave the way for further development of this tiny molecule and its potential addition to the oncologists’ treatment toolbox.

Written by Ruth Williams

Ruth Williams

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Ruth is a freelance science journalist based in the US. She's a regular correspondent for The Scientist, and her work has appeared in The Lancet, Nature, Scientific American Mind, BBC Focus and elsewhere. Twitter @rooph

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• Image from work by James V. McCann and colleagues, Dudley Lab UVA School of Medicine
• Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Cancer Biology, The University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA
• Image copyright held by the original authors
• Published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, March 2019