Blood cells that help wounds heal also spread cancers

  • 02/07/2008

  • Times Of India (New Delhi)

Chicago: Normal cells in the blood that play a role in healing wounds may also be creating the right conditions for cancer cells to spread, US researchers said. They said fibrocytes, blood cells derived from bone marrow, could explain how healthy cells become habitats for cancer. "Cancer cells do not enter healthy tissue easily. We know that,' Hendrik van Deventer of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, whose research appears in the American Journal of Pathology, said. "There has been sort of this movement to look for the cells that help prepare distant tissue to accept metastasis,' he said, referring to the process in which cancer spreads to other parts of the body. "We don't know what that cell is,' van Deventer said, but he said that cell might be a fibrocyte. "It has characteristics that make it a nice cancer metastasis-promoting cell,' van Deventer said. Van Deventer began to suspect fibrocytes when he was working with mice that were genetically engineered to lack the cell receptor CCR5, a cellular doorway that helps control the migration of cells through the body. CCR5 is the same entry point used by the human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS, to get inside immune cells. In healthy humans, fibrocytes travel through the bloodstream to injured areas, where they produce changes that are good for wounds. Van Deventer suspects these changes may help cancer grow. In his experiments, van Deventer noticed that mice injected with fibrocytes started making matrix metallopeptidase 9, or MMP-9, an enzyme that is known to promote cancer. While not proven, the study at least points to a likely candidate, van Deventer said. REUTERS Broccoli fights prostate cancer Just a few more portions of broccoli each week may protect men from prostate cancer, British researchers reported on Wednesday. The researchers believe a chemical in the food sparks hundreds of genetic changes, activating some genes that fight cancer and switching off others that fuel tumors, said Richard Mithen, a biologist at Britain's Institute of Food Research. There is plenty of evidence linking a healthy diet rich in fruits and vegetables to reduced cancer risk. But the study published in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS One is the first human trial studying the potential biological mechanism at work, he added. REUTERS