Good news! Amazing stuff! Cancer is history (soon)! This is possibly a breakthrough!
"... Scientists ... have now identified a protein that plays a key role in metastasis, which not only hints at a new potential treatment but reveals for the first time that this process isn’t unique to cancer. ...
In the new study, ... scientists discovered not just a new mechanism for metastasis, but completely recontextualized its role. It’s long been thought that metastasis was an abnormal process that arises in cancer, but the new study found that it’s a process used by healthy cells as well – cancer just hijacks it for its own purposes. ...
The team made the discovery while investigating a cellular structure known as sodium leak channel, non-selective (NALCN). These channels are located on cell membranes and control how salt goes in and out of the cell. In the new study, the researchers found that NALCN also regulates the release of cells from tissues into the bloodstream, where they can be taken up by other organs and tissues. ...
In tests in mice, the scientists blocked the function of the NALCN protein, and found that it triggered metastasis in stomach, intestinal and pancreatic cancers. ...
Blocking NALCN also caused healthy cells to migrate away from their original organs to other ones – pancreatic cells, for instance, moved to the kidney and became healthy kidney cells instead. ..."
In the new study, ... scientists discovered not just a new mechanism for metastasis, but completely recontextualized its role. It’s long been thought that metastasis was an abnormal process that arises in cancer, but the new study found that it’s a process used by healthy cells as well – cancer just hijacks it for its own purposes. ...
The team made the discovery while investigating a cellular structure known as sodium leak channel, non-selective (NALCN). These channels are located on cell membranes and control how salt goes in and out of the cell. In the new study, the researchers found that NALCN also regulates the release of cells from tissues into the bloodstream, where they can be taken up by other organs and tissues. ...
In tests in mice, the scientists blocked the function of the NALCN protein, and found that it triggered metastasis in stomach, intestinal and pancreatic cancers. ...
Blocking NALCN also caused healthy cells to migrate away from their original organs to other ones – pancreatic cells, for instance, moved to the kidney and became healthy kidney cells instead. ..."
From the abstract:
"We identify the sodium leak channel non-selective protein (NALCN) as a key regulator of cancer metastasis and nonmalignant cell dissemination. Among 10,022 human cancers, NALCN loss-of-function mutations were enriched in gastric and colorectal cancers. Deletion of Nalcn from gastric, intestinal or pancreatic adenocarcinomas in mice did not alter tumor incidence, but markedly increased the number of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and metastases. Treatment of these mice with gadolinium—a NALCN channel blocker—similarly increased CTCs and metastases. Deletion of Nalcn from mice that lacked oncogenic mutations and never developed cancer caused shedding of epithelial cells into the blood at levels equivalent to those seen in tumor-bearing animals. These cells trafficked to distant organs to form normal structures including lung epithelium, and kidney glomeruli and tubules. Thus, NALCN regulates cell shedding from solid tissues independent of cancer, divorcing this process from tumorigenesis and unmasking a potential new target for antimetastatic therapies."
Breakthrough in understanding of how cancer spreads could lead to better treatments Cambridge scientists have discovered that cancer cells ‘hijack’ a process used by healthy cells to spread around the body, completely changing current ways of thinking around cancer metastasis.
Fig. 4: NALCN loss-of-function increases tumor metastasis.
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