ABOVE: Illustration of macrophage a engulfing a cancer cell
© ISTOCK, MARCIN KLAPCZYNSKI
More than a century ago, Otto Aichel, a German pathologist, made the peculiar observation of cancer cells with characteristics of different cell types, including white blood cells. The data led him to propose that the fusion between cancer cells and white blood cells could impose advantages to the tumor, allowing it to spread more readily in the body. But since then, evidence for the formation of these cancer cell–immune cell hybrids has been difficult to come by.
Now, Aichel’s theory just got a lot more support. In a study published yesterday (September 12) in Science Advances, researchers at the Oregon Health & Science University (OSHU) and their colleagues describe the presence of such hybrids in mouse models of cancer and in the peripheral blood of patients with solid tumors.
In the human cancer patients, the presence of these ...
