Organ Tropism
This paper is on the role of cancer stem cells in the organ tropism of breast cancer metastasis. Cancer mortality is increasing despite vast research efforts. This paper will discuss the characteristics of cancer stem cells and their potential microenvironments. I will focus on a theory of treatment for breast cancer and the role of cancer stem cells in organ tropism.
Adult stem cells can self-renew and are multipotent. Only 0.5% of blood-forming cells are stem cells. (Huether & McCance, 2012, p. 238) Organ tropism is the preferential growth of cancer cells to travel to certain organs. What makes cancer cells …show more content…
The poor prognosis for patients with metastatic breast cancer and toxic side effects of currently available treatments necessitate the development of effective tumor-selective therapies. Neural stem cells (NSCs) possess inherent tumor tropic properties that enable them to overcome many obstacles of drug delivery that limit effective chemotherapy strategies for breast cancer. We report that increased NSC tropism to breast tumor cell lines is strongly correlated with the invasiveness of cancer cells. Interleukin 6 (IL-6) was identified as a major cytokine mediating NSC tropism to invasive breast cancer cells. We show for the first time in a preclinical mouse model of metastatic human breast cancer that NSCs preferentially target tumor metastases in multiple organs, including liver, lung, lymph nodes, and femur, versus the primary intramammary fat pad tumor. For proof-of-concept of stem cell-mediated breast cancer therapy, NSCs were genetically modified to secrete rabbit carboxyl esterase (rCE), an enzyme that activates the CPT-11 prodrug to SN-38, a potent topoisomerase I inhibitor, to effect tumor-localized chemotherapy. In vitro data demonstrate that exposure of breast cancer cells to conditioned media from rCE-secreting NSCs (NSC.rCE) increased their sensitivity to CPT-11 by 200-fold. In vivo, treatment of tumor-bearing mice with NSC.rCE cells in combination with CPT-11 resulted in