Stopping the Spread

"Your cancer has spread". Words no-one wants to hear. This process of cancer spreading to other parts of the body is called metastasis and accounts for most cancer-related deaths. So understanding how cancer cells break free of a dense tumour and start migrating is a high priority. Researchers have now identified a key culprit in melanoma; the most serious type of skin cancer. Migrating cancer cells were able to move through smaller spaces more easily, compared to ones confined to a tumour, by changing the shape of their nucleus (four pictured). Their nuclei become ‘more fluid’ by forming bulges of different shapes and sizes at the edges. Usually the nucleus is protected by a rigid layer called the nuclear envelope. However, a protein called LAP-1 (highlighted in magenta) helps to loosen that layer in more aggressive cancer cells allowing them to squeeze through smaller gaps enabling invasion and migration.

Written by Sophie Arthur

Sophie Arthur

former Science Communications Officer MRC LMS

Formerly a stem cell biologist, Sophie has since moved into science communication working at the MRC LMS. She also writes an award winning science and education blog Soph talks science.

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• Image adapted from work by Yaiza Jung-Garcia and colleagues
• Organelle Dynamics Laboratory, The Francis Crick Institute, London, UK
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in Nature Cell Biology, January 2023