Bacteria promote cancer metastasis by bolstering the strength of host cells against mechanical stress in the bloodstream, promoting cell survival during tumor progression, researchers report.

Prostate cancers remain localized in the majority of cases, giving affected individuals a good chance of survival. However, about 20% of patients develop incurable metastatic prostate cancer, resulting in approximately 5,000 deaths each year in Austria alone. Medical research has not yet adequately explained why metastases occur in some people and not in others. A research team has now discovered specific changes in a protein that drive the growth and spread of prostate cancer.

Prostate cancers remain localized in the majority of cases, giving affected individuals a good chance of survival. However, about 20% of patients develop incurable metastatic prostate cancer, resulting in approximately 5,000 deaths each year in Austria alone. Medical research has not yet adequately explained why metastases occur in some people and not in others. A research team has now discovered specific changes in a protein that drive the growth and spread of prostate cancer.

Invading armies need a steady supply of fuel and armaments. That’s just as true when the invaders are cells, such as when tumor cells break away and spread to other parts of the body in a process called metastasis — the most deadly part of cancer. Now, a study in C. elegans worms provides new insight into how invading cells deploy fuel to the front lines of invasion to power their break-through machinery.

Researchers have found that manipulating voltage patterns of tumor cells — using ion channel blockers already FDA-approved as treatments for other diseases — can in fact significantly reduce metastasis in animal models of breast cancer.

Depleting copper levels may reduce the production of energy that cancer cells need to travel and establish themselves in other parts of the body by a process referred to as metastasis, according to a new study. The discovery of the underlying mechanisms of how copper depletion may help reduce metastasis in breast cancer will help inform the design of future clinical trials.

The compound works by hindering a key pathway that cancer cells rely upon to hoard energy, and is already undergoing clinical trials.

Brain metastasis occurs when cancer in one part of the body spreads to the brain. The lifetime incidence of such metastatic brain tumors in cancer patients is between 20%-45%, research shows.

A key element to slowing metastasis in ovarian cancer is understanding the mechanisms of how tumor cells invade tissues. Biophysics researchers explain how microscopic defects in how healthy cells line up can alter how easily ovarian cancer cells invade tissue. Using an experimental model, the group found that disruptions in the normal cellular layout, called topological defects, affect the rate of tumor cell invasion.

New research has uncovered an essential mechanism coordinating the processes of cell division and adhesion within humans. This discovery has profound potential for advancing understanding of cell adhesion signalling in cancerous tumor progression and metastasis.

Researchers develop an antibody conjugate called BonTarg that delivers drugs to bone tumors and inhibits metastasis.

As deadly as it is, cancer metastasis is a poorly understood process. A new study describes a cutting-edge tool for tracing the lineage and gene expression of thousands of individual metastatic cancer cells. Their findings open new angles for investigating the processes that drive metastasis.

A review study advances knowledge about the connection between obesity-associated inflammation and cancer. The researchers suggest that inflammatory cells with immunosuppressive properties may act as a critical biological link between obesity and cancer risk, progression, and metastasis.

Because Taspase 1 dysregulation is increasingly implicated in the genesis and metastasis of various cancers, it has become an attractive candidate for drug development. But before this can happen, researchers will need a highly detailed blueprint of the structure of this protease. In a new study appearing in the Cell Press journal Structure, researchers from Arizona State University describe their investigations, which reveal the structure of Taspase 1 as never before.

When scientists at the Institute of Science and Technology (IST) Austria looked at developing zebrafish embryos, they observed an abrupt and dramatic change: within just a few minutes, the solid-like embryonic tissue becomes fluid-like. What could cause this change and, what is its role in the further development of the embryo? In a multidisciplinary study published in the journal Cell, they found answers that could change how we look at key processes in development and disease, such as tumor metastasis.

Researchers discovered a new, still-unnamed organelle that plays a role in bone metastasis and is formed via liquid-liquid phase separation — when liquid blobs of living materials merge into each other.

Engineers have characterized the properties of the protective membrane around tumors and found that this lining may be a good target for therapies to prevent metastasis.

A commercially available genomic test may help oncologists better determine which patients with recurrent prostate cancer may benefit from hormone therapy, according to new research.

Engineers have developed in vitro — in the lab — lymphatic vessel model to study the growth of tumor emboli, collections of tumor cells within vessels that are often associated with increased metastasis and tumor recurrence.

SETD2, known for its involvement on gene expression, also can affect functions controlled by the cytoskeleton, such as movement, metastasis and migration, which are very important for cancer cells.

Breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer in women, and metastasis from the breast to other areas of the body is the leading cause of death in these patients. Detecting circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in the bloodstream could help doctors find and treat metastases at an earlier stage, increasing chances of survival. Now, researchers have developed a method that could more sensitively detect CTCs within the complex environment of blood.

Using a new technique, a team of researchers has found tiny and previously undetectable ‚hot spots‘ of extremely high stiffness inside aggressive and invasive breast cancer tumors. Their findings suggest, for the first time, that only very tiny regions of a tumor need to stiffen for metastasis to take place. Though still in its infancy, the researchers believe that their technique may prove useful in detecting and mapping the progression of aggressive cancers.

Metastases are formed by cancer cells that break away from the primary tumor. A research group at the University of Basel has now identified lack of oxygen as the trigger for this process. The results reveal an important relationship between the oxygen supply to tumors and the formation of metastases. This research may open up new treatment strategies for cancer.

Scientists studied how cancer cells are able to divide in a crowded tumor tissue and connected it to the hallmark of cancer progression and metastasis, the epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT).

In laboratory studies, researchers observed a key step in how cancer cells may spread from a primary tumor to a distant site within the body, a process known as metastasis.