WIKIMEDIA, RAMAMacrophages are usually the body’s protectors, engulfing pathogens and cleaning up dead cells and debris. But in some cases, cancer cells fuse with these immune cells to possibly become even more harmful, according to a poster presented yesterday (December 15) at the American Society for Cell Biology Annual Meeting in New Orleans. The researchers demonstrated that macrophages and mouse colon cancer cells spontaneously fuse when cultured together and noted altered growth in the hybrid cells compared to ordinary cancer cells, prompting speculation that hybridization could spur cancer progression.
“The methodology is rigorous,” said Alberto Mantovani, an immunologist at the University of Milan’s Humanitas Research Institute who was not involved in the study. But he added that the cells fused in culture, not within mice. “We need to know whether this is real in primary tumors,” he said.
“I think it’s interesting if it’s true,” said Zihai Li, a cancer immunologist at the Medical University of South Carolina who was also not involved in the study. However, he noted that it remains unclear how important cell fusions are in human cancers.
German biologist Otto Aichel first proposed that cancer cells and white blood cells such as macrophages could fuse in 1911, according to John Pawelek, a cancer biologist at the Yale School of Medicine ...
