To distinguish between cancer cells and their clusters from the healthy tissues of the body, biologists have changed their DNA.
Scientists from Japan have developed a method that allows you to see the distribution of cancer in the body with an accuracy of one cell. Making using of special chemical composition of the body of the mouse transparent, the researchers were able to see how malignant tumors multiply within individual organs.
To build a full 3D model of the mouse body used modern scanning equipment and powerful graphical editors. However, the display of individual cancer cells during metastasis even with the help of such technique is not the easiest thing. The reason being that malignant tumors are spread sporadically all over my body, and predict the specific location of their occurrence is not so simple. The cells themselves are sought through the gathering of signals from fluorescent proteins, which were required to keep during the cleaning pictures of unnecessary information.
Given this difficulty, the research team modified the previously developed chemical compound called CUBIC, which made nearly transparent individual organs, but to keep the signals from cancer cells, making them found in the liver, pancreas and intestines.
The resulting images show the cancer of the colony in sufficient detail to calculate their shapes, volumes and distribution – features that are crucial for the differences between samples of metastases.
The new imaging Protocol has already gives a clearer picture of some of the previously mysterious stages of metastasis. In particular, to reach a new place in the body and stay there, the cancer cell needs to engage in a continuous search to enter and exit through the walls of blood vessels.
“Most cancer cells are not so lucky and die during this journey – says one of the authors of the project Kohei Miyazono from the University of Tokyo. But cells that fall under the rich influence of the protein TGF-beta, which regulates cell growth and is produced in increased amounts in some cancers survive are much more likely to form malignant outposts”.
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