Researchers revealed the mechanism behind the occurrence of anemia that arises when cancer is transmitted to the bones, and it involves a kind of “kidnapping” cells.
The research aims to help slow the bone metastases, one of the most dangerous forms of cancer, which is initially arising in other parts of the body -especially in cases of lung cancer, prostate cancer, breast cancer, kidney cancer and thyroid cancer -and then settles in the bones in the advanced stages.
The study was conducted by a research team led by researchers from the University of Princeton in the United States, Yipin Kang and Youngo Han, and the results of the study were published in the Cell Journal (CELL) in the September Fetal, and was written by Yurrick Alert.
The researchers have revealed that cancer cells actually control a specialized cell that recycle iron in the bones, known as the erythroblast island macrophage, and this deprives these red blood cells of the necessary iron and the tumor helps to continue to grow in the bone.
“Hope is to slow down or treat bone metastasis, and at the same time, reduce complications from anemia,” said Han, author of the study and researcher in the Department of Molecular Biology at Princeton University.
Kang explained that this discovery represents a new research trend for his laboratory, a trend that turns attention from “seeds” of cancer to the “soil” in which it grows within the location of the metal member.
Understand the soil in which cancer grows
Until recently, the bone marrow remained as a dirt for the growth of cancer. Kang said: “It was a big black hole. We had no comprehensive understanding of the soil.”
The researchers were able to identify and visualize groups of specialized Pellowary cells that gather around the tumor, the cells that were supposed to support the production of red blood cells, but instead, they were transferred to cancer service.
In health conditions, these walkers act as a mother nourishing red blood cells with iron until they ripen and carry oxygen, but in the presence of bone metacles, the tumor attracts these pulpits to its side using signal molecules, then it turns iron away from the red blood cells.
The disorder exceeds the loss of iron alone, as the researchers found that the alleys that the tumor exploits also fail to support the final ripening stage of red blood cells, which hinders the growth of red blood cells and exacerbates anemia, and the bone marrow deprives the iron needed to produce healthy red blood cells, and holds red blood cells in their immature condition, causing patients’ anemia in patients.
At the same time, the stolen iron cells are used for their own use, as they are adapted by simulating the red blood cells themselves, and begins to produce hemoglobin, which is the same protein that transports oxygen that fills red blood cells, allowing the tumor to prosper in the bone environment with oxygen, and protects cancer cells from stress and helps them to survive.