One would think so. It could very promising. Studies on pathogenic amoebas have uncovered striking parallels with dormant cancer cells. An important aspect concerning the resilient properties of cysts from pathogenic amoebas concerns cAMP and cell signaling. They admirably cope with nutrient stress. They are well suited to study differentiation. The commonality between the concept of tumor dormancy and the cancer stem cell theory of tumor propagation is indeed fascinating. Comprehension of cellular processes in the cysts could open a window to the understanding of cancer cell dormancy and of stem cell adaptation.

Hey thanks Chithan,

Will think over it and get your valuable inputs.

Best wishes

Mannan

Perhaps this article (doi:10.1089/dna.2014.2375) may answer your question.

My former colleagues and I found after chemotherapeutic treatments of cancer cell lines from different histological origins that mitochondria were involved in nuclear encapsulation, which resulted in a dormancy period of several months, "...before the nuclei were ejected along with residual cytoplasm trapped in their intermembrane space...". These nuclei / cancer cells were able to form new colonies!

So, I believe that researching the process of encystation of unicellular eukaryotes will improve our understanding of cancer cell dormancy, and also of cancer resistance and the development of metastases, even though, there are more resistance mechanisms, e.g. some kind of endoreplication of syncytium-like cells.

http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/dna.2014.2375

Dear Sebastian,

Thanks a lot, starting to write and do the lab work both. Will keep the blog posted.

Best,

Mannan

Hi.....published on this topic few days back. Link at my page for the journal and manuscript. Thanks to Chithan and Gustman who encouraged me.