SAN DIEGO — A growth factor helps cancer cells get a move on, a new study shows.
Even a modest-size tumor may be composed of billions of cells, but only a tiny fraction ever break away to migrate to other parts of the body. Details of what makes some cancer cells metastasize, as the movement is called, have not been well understood because it is difficult to find and observe such a rare event.
“We’re looking at a needle in a haystack, but it’s a moving needle, so that makes it that much harder,” said Erik Sahai of Cancer Research UK’s London Research Institute, who conducted the study and presented the work during the American Society for Cell Biology annual meeting.