Hi !
I've asked myself this question while preparing a presentation about multicellular-spheroids.
As reported in ovarian cancer, spheroids seem to appear in some cancer during metastasis. So I was wondering : can being in an aggregate help fighting anoikis which is an issue metastatic cells have to tackle ?
One of the mechanisms I can think of is that if you secrete your own ECM in the aggregate, not having an outer anchorage is less a problem.
Do you know if this effect has ever been reported ?
Thank you
Cancer cells which form spheroids are highly likely to exhibit much the same way as in vivo. Spheroid tumor cells not only secrete extracelular matrix such as laminin but also form the adherens junctions each other, thereby preventing apoptosis without the attachment to the basal membrane.
Furthermore, it has been recently shown that epithelial/mesenchymal (E/M) hybrid-typed cancer cells help E(high) tumor cells survive in the bloodstream by forming the cluster of circulating tumor cells. This is attributed to partial EMT.
Dasatinib, an inhibitor of multi-tyrosine kinases including Src family kinases (SFK), abolished anoikis resistance in suspension cultures, indicating that SFK activated by spheroid formation are responsible for anoikis resistance.
Ref
Oncol Rep. 2015 Nov;34(5):2305-10. doi: 10.3892/or.2015.4200. Epub 2015 Aug 13.
Inhibition of Src family kinases overcomes anoikis resistance induced by spheroid formation and facilitates cisplatin-induced apoptosis in human mesothelioma cells.
- Badges
- Science topic