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The discovery of the cell, which they call "the original cell," sheds new light on the factors that fuel cancer growth and ways to stop it.
Principal Investigator Professor Michael P Lisanti "If, as we believe, we have found the beginning of the road, we may have to press the reset button to find out how we treat cancer with drugs."
Describe the cell and its functions in the journal Frontiers in Oncology, the team of the Center for Biomedical Research of University of Salford say the results "rewrite what we know about the cancer growth process" and offer new evidence that cancer stem cells are highly proliferative and are guided by mitochondrial function.
"Scientists are talking about cancer caused by the regeneration of dying cells, called zombie cells," says Lisanti.
"We now see that it is more dramatic than that – in fact, it could be more accurately described as a break in prison.
"In other words, this original cell comes off and breaks loose, multiplying the malignant cells and creating a tumor."
Using auto-fluorescence techniques, the Salford team, which included Federica Sotgia and Marco Fiorillo, isolated the most energetic cells in a series of cancer cell lines derived from human bad tumors.
They found that the most dynamic cancer stem cells, representing 0.2% of the cell population, had special characteristics, with much more energy than average cancer cells.
They then cross-checked the "performance" of the cell in terms of mitochondrial hyperfunction, proliferation rate and a factor that they call "defilement", ie, if it is able to to create a tumor.
They also found that the cells exhibited senescence characteristics with a senescent biomarker, p21-WAF, multiplied by about 17 in these cancer stem cells.
"If we ask where these cells come from, the evidence indicates that they are emerging from senescent (dying) cells," said Professor Sotgia.
"They showed distinctive signs of senescence but are no longer, they came out of senescence."
The explanation for this seems to be in the way the cells are reactivated. They may have used antioxidants and mitochondrial energy to break free and reverse cell cycle arrest.
Lisanti added, "It looks like finding the needle in a haystack, which gives us a new window on cancer and how to stop it.
"Most cancer patients die because of the spread of tumor cells to distant sites, called metastases.
"There is growing evidence that metastatic stem cells, fed by mitochondria, are responsible for this, yet most chemotherapies target cancer cells in bulk, and some chemotherapies even increase the proliferation of cancer stem cells. "
Source:
https://www.salford.ac.uk/
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