Tangled spikes extended outward in all directions from a mass of mammary tumor cells until researchers treated them with a microRNA. This treatment set off a cascade of events that induced the cells to reverse a hallmark in cancer progression known as the epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT). Then the organoids became smooth, round blobs.
Jeffrey Rosen, a molecular biologist at Baylor College of Medicine, and his colleagues used the extreme shape change to identify drugs that reverse EMT and make cancer more susceptible to chemotherapy. This approach could facilitate the rapid repurposing of FDA-approved drugs.
“This study could open new avenues to combine drugs that change the differentiation state of tumor cells with drugs or novel treatment approaches that kill tumor cells only if they have a particular differentiation state,” said Aleix Prat, a medical oncologist at the University of Barcelona, who was not involved with the research.
Rosen has been ...
