A New Discovery in the Cancer Microenvironment – Host-Derived Extracellular Matrix Promotes Tumor Growth

December 22(Fri), 2017

An international research collaboration group of Satoshi Hirohata, Professor at the Faculty of Health Sciences in Okayama University, Toshitaka Oohashi, Professor at the Graduate School of Medicine Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Science, Keiichi Asano, a graduate student, Suneel S. Apte MBBS, Ph. D at the Cleveland Clinic, Lerner Research Institute and other members, has discovered that surrounding host-derived cells, not actual cancer cells, express a type of protein called versican which promotes angiogenesis and cancer growth.
In this research, it was made clear that versican is excreted by the surrounding cells of the cancer tissue that enter into the cancer tissue. It was also made clear that the distribution of cleavages was changed (repositioned). This result was published in the electronic version of the British science magazine “Scientific Reports” on December 8, 2017.
This research result shows the importance of a “cancer microenvironment” that contains cells other than cancer. In other words, the result shows that not only cancer tissue, but also host-derived cells are contributing to promoting tumor growth. We can easily say that this gives us new research problems in cancer treatment.
This research result also shows the importance of having a new treatment strategy, such as an immunity checkpoint inhibitor, rather than a treatment that works directly on cancer cells.

 

Versican (Green)                                                                                                  Cleaved Versican (Green)
Vascular endothelial cells (Red)                                                                           Vascular endothelial cells (Red)

Relocation of the decomposition products of versican in tumor blood vessels (relocation: partly modified from the original)

Cleaved versican (Right) overlapped with endothelium stain while the intact versican (Left) did not.

 

Article Information 

DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-17613-6

Authors: Scientific Reports

Journal: Scientific Reports

Title: Stromal Versican Regulates Tumor Growth by Promoting Angiogenesis

Year of Publication: 2017

 

Okayama University Silicon Valley Office (OUSVO)

Contact: Mototaka Senda, Ph.D.

Phone:    (1)510-894-3067

E-mail:    ousvo@okayama-u.ac.jp