Shape shifting cells can trigger spread of skin cancer

Scientists have found genes that control shape changes in melanoma skin cancer cells, enabling them to spread around the body.

The study was published in Nature Cell Biology and funded by Cancer Research UK, the Wellcome Trust and the National Institutes of Health and could allow experts to develop drugs for malignant skin melanoma, which is the deadliest form of skin cancer.

It kills roughly 2,200 people on an annual basis in the UK. Melanoma cells can switch between rounded and elongated shapes, enabling single cells to invade a number of tissue types and speed up the spread of the disease.

Scientists at the Institute of Cancer Research and the Methodist Research Institute in Houston first identified a set of genes in fruit flies and in human cells that can regulate the shape of melanoma cells.

They then witnessed the cells changing shape as they switched the genes off. Melanoma cells can adopt different shapes to squeeze between healthy cells and spread through the body, and can adopt a round shape to travel through the bloodstream or invade soft tissue.

Dr Julie Sharp, senior science information manager at Cancer Research UK, said: “This lab research gives us a better grasp of the way cancer cells behave in the body. By mimicking how cells move and spread, our researchers are learning more about melanoma skin cancer and bringing us closer to beating it.

“Melanoma is the most deadly form of skin cancer because it spreads easily. This makes it harder to treat and is why early diagnosis is so important – to detect the disease before it has spread to other areas.”

Cancer Research UK figures suggest that more women than men suffer from melanoma in the UK, while it is also the fifth most common cancer in the country with the exception of non melanoma skin cancer.

Posted by Ben Evans