Cell Migration News and Research

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Research shows tumor suppressor protein regulates polarity genes

What does Brad Pitt have in common with a fruit fly? His Hollywood hairstyles cover a prominent cowlick - the swirl of hair that that is caused by a patterning mechanism also active in our two-winged friends -- that similarly feature "polarized" hair patterns.

24 Mar 2016

Blocking Mena protein could help prevent cancer metastasis, says MIT researcher

A new study from MIT reveals how cancer cells take some of their first steps away from their original tumor sites. This spread, known as metastasis, is responsible for 90 percent of cancer deaths.

16 Mar 2016

Cells communicate to their neighbors and compare notes before making a move

To decide whether and where to move in the body, cells must read chemical signals in their environment. Individual cells do not act alone during this process, two new studies on mouse mammary tissue show. Instead, the cells make decisions collectively after exchanging information about the chemical messages they are receiving.

22 Jan 2016

Dietary sugar may help to treat melanoma

New research from scientists at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP) suggests that a rare sugar found in seaweed, mushrooms, seeds and other foods may be able to help treat skin cancer.

9 Dec 2015

Bone protein can inhibit prostate cancer metastasis to bone

Scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in collaboration with researchers from University of California campuses at Merced and Davis have found that a secreted protein predominantly expressed in bone inhibits prostate cancer metastasis to bone.

18 Nov 2015

New online tool may allow researchers explore formation of hair follicles

A new online database will empower researchers exploring how hair follicles and the surrounding skin develop, according to an article published recently in the journal Developmental Cell. The work is central to understanding the interactions between stem cells and their environment - or "niche cells" - during fetal development, and will specifically facilitate future attempts to make skin grafts with functional hair follicles or to regenerate lost hair in patients.

30 Oct 2015

Adelaide researchers identify key protein involved in 'super-inflammatory' immune response

Researchers have made another important step in the progress towards being able to block the development of multiple sclerosis (MS) and other autoimmune diseases.

29 Oct 2015

Patrolling monocytes may play anti-cancer role in the lung

One goal of immunotherapy is to rally a patient's often over-burdened immune cells to effectively attack a tumor. Among foot soldiers on the immune front line is a subpopulation of white blood cells called "patrolling monocytes," whose job is to cruise the bloodstream, cart off cellular debris, and block invasion of a less benign population of inflammatory cells.

23 Oct 2015

Research shows why microgravity leads to muscle loss

People can easily feel the presence - or absence - of gravity. Our individual cells actually may be able to sense gravity, too, and that ability could play a role in the loss of muscle that occurs when humans spend time in space.

1 Oct 2015

Innovative way may stop spread of glioblastoma multiforme

Scientists at the University of Toledo Health Science Campus and Van Andel Research Institute have discovered an innovative way that may stop the spread of the most lethal and aggressive brain cancer glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). In laboratory studies, scientists demonstrated that activating a specific family of proteins halted cancer cell migration into healthy tissue.

22 Sep 2015

MACC1 gene can help predict better treatment options for patients with Klatskin carcinoma

Bile duct cancer is rare and is usually detected too late. Often only extensive liver surgery can help or, in rare cases, liver transplantation. But which patients will benefit from surgery and which will not, because their risk of cancer recurrence is too high? With the oncogene MACC1 as a biomarker, physicians for the first time have a tool to decide which treatment option is best for patients with Klatskin carcinoma, one type of bile duct cancer.

1 Sep 2015

Scientists uncover mechanism responsible for development of adrenal gland tumors

Scientists at the Helmholtz Zentrum München have elucidated a mechanism that is responsible for the development of adrenal gland tumors. They discovered that the BMP7 protein plays a key role in this process and that it could be a possible target for future treatments. The results have been published in the journal 'Oncotarget'.

28 Aug 2015

Netrin1 protein acts as cellular "marriage broker"

Scientists at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital -The Neuro, at McGill University and the McGill University Health Centre, have made a breakthrough in understanding an important protein that appears to act as a kind of cellular "marriage broker."

13 Aug 2015

DISC-1: schizophrenia's "Rosetta Stone" gene? An interview with Professor Kevin Fox

The DISC-1 gene has been studied intensively over the years because people with mutations in DISC1 have a high likelihood of mental illness. DISC-1 was known to be associated with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major clinical depression and autism.

10 Aug 2015

WSU's Li Yao explores use of electrical signal for treating spinal cord injuries

Wichita State University's Li Yao is taking a special approach to the study of spinal cord injuries through research that uses an electrical signal to repair tissue damage.

17 Jul 2015

Single molecule appears to be central regulator driving cancer metastasis

Cancer is a disease of cell growth, but most tumors only become lethal once they metastasize or spread from their first location to sites throughout the body. For the first time, researchers at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia report a single molecule that appears to be the central regulator driving metastasis in prostate cancer.

14 Jul 2015

Findings shed light on how symmetrical, round cells become polarized and directional

When Greek mythology and cell biology meet, you get the protein Callipygian, recently discovered and named by researchers at The Johns Hopkins University for its role in determining which area of a cell becomes the back as it begins to move.

8 Jul 2015

Wistar Institute study shows that PI3K inhibitors may make a patient's cancer even worse

The enzyme phosphatidylinositol-3 kinase (PI3K) appears to be exploited in almost every type of human cancer, making it the focus of considerable interest as a therapeutic target, with many PI3K-inhibiting drugs currently in various stages of clinical development. However, PI3K inhibitors have only shown modest clinical activity with patients who receive these drugs experiencing very little improvement in survival.

30 Jun 2015

New research sheds light on molecular architecture of receptors linked to many brain diseases

Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute have teamed up with several other institutions and pharmaceutical companies, including the University of Southern California (USC), San Diego's Receptos Inc. and Japanese company Ono Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., to publish the first 3D structures of a receptor implicated in many diseases of the brain and in normal physiology throughout the body.

22 Jun 2015

Inhibitors BGB324 and BGB10C9 show promise in multiple murine models of pancreatic cancer

BerGenBio AS, an oncology biopharmaceutical company, today announces that an abstract on the latest data on BGB324, the Company's first-in-class, selective small molecule inhibitor of the Axl receptor tyrosine kinase, and BGB10C9, an Axl function-blocking monoclonal antibody in pre-clinical development at BerGenBio, has been published in conjunction with the 2015 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting in Chicago, May 29 - June 2, 2015.

30 May 2015