Story picked up by Science Translational Medicine as "Editor's choice": New insight into the origin of disseminated tumor cells in breast cancer published in Genome Biology
Elen Kristine Møller, postdoc at the Department of Cancer Genetics, studied during her PhD project the fate of disseminated tumor cells (DTCs). In a collaborative study among OUS, University of Chicago, University of Leuven and the Francis Crick Institute it is revealed that breast cancer cells break away and spread to other parts of the body relatively late on in breast tumor development.
The findings are published in the December 9th issue of Genome Biology (journal impact factor 11.3), in an article entitled "Tracing the origin of disseminated tumor cells in breast cancer using single-cell sequencing".
Update: The story has become the "Editors Choice" in the January 4th issue of Science Translational Medicine.
The team tracked the genetics of particular cancer cells that can go on to form secondary tumors in other parts of the body, such as the bone marrow. The groupÂ’s findings suggest there is a longer window than previously thought for cancer to be diagnosed and treated before it spreads into metastases. They also that DTCs are genetically very similar to the patientÂ’s original tumor. In one case it was possible to also sample the lymph node and find changes not observed in the primary tumor, which were also carried by some DTCs.
Links:
The article:
Tracing the origin of disseminated tumor cells in breast cancer using single-cell sequencing
Jonas Demeulemeester†, Parveen Kumar†, Elen K. Møller†, Silje Nord, David C. Wedge, April Peterson, Randi R. Mathiesen, Renathe Fjelldal, Masoud Zamani Esteki, Koen Theunis, Elia Fernandez Gallardo, A. Jason Grundstad, Elin Borgen, Lars O. Baumbusch, Anne-Lise Børresen-Dale, Kevin P. White, Vessela N. Kristensen, Peter Van Loo Thierry Voet and Bjørn Naume
†Contributed equally
Genome Biol. 2016 Dec 9;17(1):250. DOI: 10.1186/s13059-016-1109-7
PMID: 27931250
(updated January 13th)
Editor's Choice in Science Translational Medicine:
A case of mistaken identity.
Shalek AK.
Sci Transl Med. 2017 Jan 4;9(371). pii: eaal4988. doi: 10.1126/scitranslmed.aal4988. No abstract available.
PMID: 28053155