Gene from cells that surround tumors is key in the advancement of breast cancer

Spanish researchers discovered that a gene present in the cells that surround tumors, and that form the so-called tumor stroma, is key in the progression of breast cancer. Details of the finding have been published in Cancer Research.

Led by researchers from the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) and the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) and carried out in a mouse model, the study shows that the absence of the SNAI2 gene in the tumor stroma makes it more difficult to activate , fulfill its function and grow.

Overall, tumor cells develop and grow surrounded by other non-tumor cells that form the tumor stroma.

The function of the stroma, when it is activated and its functional capacity increases, is to generate new blood vessels that allow nutrients and oxygen to reach the tumor cells for their growth; in this way, the tumor grows and progresses.

Activated stroma is not specific to cancer, but is the mechanism for growth of all normal tissue, as in wound healing.

In this work, the researchers demonstrated that, if that stroma is subjected to functional stress (that is, it is asked to further increase its function), which is achieved by increasing the oncogenic activity of tumor cells, then it is observed a defect in tumor metastasis.

Until now, SNAI2 had been related to tumor spread, but this work shows that “stromal insufficiency due to the loss of SNAI2 is also associated with a defect in tumor spread,” explained Jesús Pérez Losada, CSIC researcher at the Research Center del Cáncer (IBMCC-CSIC-USAL) and one of the study authors.

Possible therapeutic target

For the authors, these results suggest that the inhibition of SNAI2 in the stroma could be a therapeutic target to treat breast cancer.

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