How cancer cells communicate shown for first time
New technology developed at UCL is, for the first time, enabling cancer scientists to analyse the individual behaviour of millions of different cells living inside lab-grown tumours - a breakthrough which could lead to new personalised cancer treatments. The research, published in Nature Methods, provides new insight into how mutated cancer cells "mimic the growth signals" normally expressed by healthy cells - which allows cancer cells to grow unchecked. Corresponding author, Dr Chris Tape (UCL Cancer Institute), said: "Our new technology allows us to simultaneously measure the behaviour of cancer cells, healthy cells, and immune cells from mini-tumours. "This new technique revealed that mutations in cancer cells mimic the growth signals normally provided by cells in the healthy tissue microenvironment. In healthy tissues, signals from the environment are tightly controlled so the tissue doesn't grow too fast. Unfortunately in cancer, mutations that mimic microenvironment signals are constantly switched on - allowing the cancer to grow unchecked. "The new technology developed at UCL enabled scientists to observe this phenomenon in minute detail." Globally, researchers can now study cancer using mini-tumours, known as 'organoids', which are grown by embedding cancer stem cells in collagen in the lab. The 3D mini-tumours contain lots of different cells and more accurately represent a patient's cancer, compared to more traditional research, which looks at a collection of identical cells grown in 2D.
