Neutrophils, the most abundant white blood cells in humans, help tissues heal in response to injury, but this tissue repair may also help tumor cells to form metastases in radiation-injured lungs, according to a new study in mice.
“These authors conducted a rigorous series of experiments, identifying the infiltrating neutrophils as being primarily responsible for priming the lungs to grow metastases,” Michael MacManus, a radiation oncologist at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Australia who was not involved in the study, tells The Scientist in an email. “These results are of very significant interest, at least with respect to the understanding of metastasis of murine models where entire lungs can be irradiated with relatively large fractions of radiation.”
In a previous study, the researchers found that metastatic cancer cells induced a tissue regenerative program in the lining of the lungs, known as the epithelium. In the new work, published February 24 ...
