![Preventing Cancer Spread]()
Using mouse models of metastatic breast and pancreatic cancer, Einstein researchers have found that the drug rebastinib significantly reduces changes in tumors that promote metastasis and dramatically improves the survival of animals with breast tumors. Breast tumor cells invade blood vessels and spread through the body via doorways called Tumor Microenvironment of Metastasis (TMEM) that are found on blood vessels of tumors and consist of three different cell types in direct physical contact: a tumor cell that expresses Mena, a protein that encourages tumor cell invasion; a macrophage; and an endothelial cell. Rebastinib inhibits TMEM function, thereby preventing TMEM-associated tumor cells from invading blood vessels and causing metastasis. The drug specifically blocks a subset of macrophages found in TMEM that express the receptor tyrosine kinase Tie2. Both Tie2-expressing macrophages and TMEM function can become elevated following chemotherapy. Rebastinib may therefore prevent chemotherapy-induced metastasis from occurring. The research, which published August 24 in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, was led at Einstein by John Condeelis, Ph.D., professor and co-chair of anatomy and structural biology, the Judith and Burton P. Resnick Chair in Translational Research and co-director of the Gruss-Lipper Biophotonics Center and its Integrated Imaging Program, Maja Oktay, M.D., Ph.D., professor of pathology and anatomy and structural biology and the Integrated Imaging program, with co-first authors Allison Harney, Ph.D., and George Karagiannis, D.V.M., Ph.D., bridge postdoctoral fellows in the Integrated Imaging Program at Einstein-Montefiore.
Posted on: Tuesday, September 05, 2017