{"296021":{"#nid":"296021","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Ovarian Cancer Cells Are More Aggressive On Soft Tissues","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EWhen ovarian cancer spreads from the ovaries it almost always does so to a layer of fatty tissue that lines the gut. A new study has found that ovarian cancer cells are more aggressive on these soft tissues due to the mechanical properties of this environment. The finding is contrary to what is seen with other malignant cancer cells that seem to prefer stiffer tissues. \u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWhat we found is that there are some cancer cells that respond to softness as opposed to stiffness,\u201d said \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.chbe.gatech.edu\/faculty\/dawson\u0022\u003EMichelle Dawson\u003C\/a\u003E, an assistant professor in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. \u201cOvarian cancer cells that are highly metastatic respond to soft environments by becoming more aggressive.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOvarian cancer cells spread, or metastasize, by a different method than other cancer cells. Breast cancer cells, for example, break off from a solid tumor and flow through the blood until they arrest in small blood vessels. The cancer cells then penetrate the vessel surface to form a tumor. Because ovarian tumors are in the abdomen, these cancer cells are shed into the surrounding fluid and not distributed through the blood. They must be able to adhere directly to the fatty tissue that lines the gut, called the omentum, to begin forming a tumor. The new study discovered details about how ovarian cancer cells seem to prefer the mechanical properties of this soft tissue.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe study was published in a recent advance online edition of the \u003Cem\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/jcs.biologists.org\/content\/early\/2014\/04\/13\/jcs.144378.abstract\u0022\u003EJournal of Cell Science\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/em\u003E and was sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the Georgia Tech and Emory Center for Regenerative Medicine. \u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe research team, led by Daniel McGrail, a graduate student in the Dawson lab, found that ovarian cancer cells in vitro were more adherent to a layer of soft fat cells than a layer of stiffer bone cells, and that this behavior was also repeated using gels of similar rigidities. \u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cAll the behaviors that we associate with breast cancer cells on these more rigid environments are flipped for ovarian cancer cells,\u201d Dawson said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAfter adhering to these soft surfaces, metastatic ovarian cancer cells became more aggressive. Their proliferation increased and they were less responsive to chemotherapeutics. The ovarian cancer cells were also more motile on soft surfaces, moving nearly twice as fast as on rigid surfaces.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe team also found that less aggressive cells that do not metastasize do not exhibit any of these changes. \u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe researchers used techniques that haven\u2019t been traditionally used in the study of ovarian cancer. They measured the force exerted by the cells by tracking the displacement of beads in the environment around the cells. The researchers found that the metastatic cells increased their traction forces \u2013 used to generate motion \u2013 by three-fold on soft surfaces, but no such change was present in the less aggressive cells. \u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe think the behavior that metastatic ovarian cancer cells exert on these soft surfaces is representative of the mechanical tropism that they have for these softer tissues in the gut,\u201d Dawson said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn future work, the researchers will investigate whether ovarian cancer cells have some natural inclination towards this uniquely more aggressive behavior in softer environments. \u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe\u2019re trying to find out whether there is some internal programming that leads to this aggressive behavior,\u201d Dawson said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003EThis research is supported by the National Science Foundation under award number 1032527, and the Georgia Tech and Emory Center for Regenerative Medicine under award number 1411304. Any conclusions or opinions are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the sponsoring agencies.\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECITATION\u003C\/strong\u003E: Daniel J. McGrail, et al., \u201cThe malignancy of metastatic ovarian cancer cells is increased on soft matrices through a mechanosensitive Rho-ROCK pathway.\u201d (\u003Cem\u003EJournal of Cell Science\u003C\/em\u003E, 2014). \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1242\/?jcs.144378%20\u0022\u003Ehttp:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1242\/?jcs.144378 \u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EResearch News\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EGeorgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E177 North Avenue\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAtlanta, Georgia 30332-0181 USA\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/twitter.com\/GTResearchNews\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E@GTResearchNews\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMedia Relations Contacts\u003C\/strong\u003E: Brett Israel (\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/twitter.com\/btiatl\u0022\u003E@btiatl\u003C\/a\u003E) (404-385-1933) (\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:brett.israel@comm.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ebrett.israel@comm.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E) or John Toon (404-894-6986) (\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jtoon@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ejtoon@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWriter\u003C\/strong\u003E: Brett Israel \u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EWhen ovarian cancer spreads from the ovaries it almost always does so to a layer of fatty tissue that lines the gut. A new study has found that ovarian cancer cells are more aggressive on these soft tissues due to the mechanical properties of this environment. The finding is contrary to what is seen with other malignant cancer cells that seem to prefer stiffer tissues.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"A new study has found that ovarian cancer cells are more aggressive on soft tissues due to the mechanical properties of this environment."}],"uid":"27902","created_gmt":"2014-05-08 14:39:24","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:16:22","author":"Brett Israel","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-05-08T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-05-08T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"296011":{"id":"296011","type":"image","title":"Michelle Dawson and Daniel McGrail","body":null,"created":"1449244514","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:55:14","changed":"1475894995","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:49:55","alt":"Michelle Dawson and Daniel McGrail","file":{"fid":"199400","name":"14c10202-p23-004.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/14c10202-p23-004_1.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/14c10202-p23-004_1.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1771425,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/14c10202-p23-004_1.jpg?itok=BWpTIvWD"}}},"media_ids":["296011"],"groups":[{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"}],"categories":[{"id":"140","name":"Cancer Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"385","name":"cancer"},{"id":"10683","name":"Michelle Dawson"},{"id":"2372","name":"ovarian cancer"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71891","name":"Health and Medicine"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EBrett Israel\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E404-385-1933\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["brett.israel@comm.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}