It's been a longstanding mystery — why certain types of cancers spread to particular organs in the body. Now, investigators from Weill Cornell Medicine have discovered precisely how this happens, supporting a century-old hypothesis known as the seed and soil theory of metastasis.
The culprit? Protein signatures on the membranes of small, tumor-secreted packages containing the blueprint that drives cancers to distant organs. These signatures could offer doctors a powerful new way to detect whether a patient's tumor will metastasize and where, providing critical insights into the estimated 1.6 million new cancer cases diagnosed every year. Ninety percent of all cancer-related deaths are related to metastasis.
In their study, published Oct. 28 in Nature, the scientists investigated the role of exosomes, comprised of tumor-derived proteins, in preparing a microenvironment fertile for cancer metastasis. Working with exosomes derived from multiple cancers, they discovered that the proteins exosomes carry act as "ZIP codes" that direct exosomes to distinct organs, where they lay the molecular groundwork for metastases to form.
"Our research offers a new approach to identifying patients who are likely to develop metastatic disease," says senior author Dr. David Lyden, the Stavros S. Niarchos Professor in Pediatric Cardiology and a professor of pediatrics and of cell and developmental biology at Weill Cornell Medicine. "Instead of waiting for late-stage metastasis, we can now initiate preventative strategies at an earlier point of disease progression with the hope of preventing its spread. This really changes the treatment paradigm."