About
For cancer to metastasize, tumor cells must not only invade the local tissue but must also grow and proliferate once they arrive. Tumor cell heterogeneity, the presence of multiple types of cancer cells within a tumor, can increase cell proliferation and invasion through cooperative interactions, increasing the potential for metastasis. We recently found that pro-invasion cancer cells express the protein fibronectin and increase metastasis for pro-growth cancer cells. We investigated this interaction by analyzing these two cell types’ migration and survival, both alone and in co-cultures. We find that pro-invasion cells have a protective effect on pro-growth cells, which otherwise die after two days in nutrient-starved conditions. Further, we find that adding soluble fibronectin to pro-growth cells in culture was sufficient to improve survival. However, their survival was higher for co-culturing conditions. These studies highlight the importance of cancer cell heterogeneity and the role of fibronectin in metastasis.
