Migration of Cancer Cells Dependent on Energy Needs

Cancer cells that are traveling to different sites require various amounts of energy for other components that continue to proliferate at the original tumor site, according to findings published in the journal Nature Cell Biology.

"New therapy strategies are beginning to focus on the unique vulnerabilities of cancer cell metabolism. Determining the metabolic requirements of invasive cancer cells could be of therapeutic value," said Valerie LeBleu, Ph.D., assistant professor of cancer biology at MD Anderson and lead author, in a news release. "We found that invading cancer cells rely on mitochondria during their transition to other cancer sites."

As some cancer cells are actually programmed to eat at home, while others have more of a special diet that allows them to travel to other areas, study authors found a therapeutic way to stop the cells from harmfully migrating a lunch ahead of time that could even potentially halt the travel of these cells.

In other words, suppressing PGC-1 α appears to accomplish this.

"The most dangerous cancer cells are the ones that can efficiently move and find a new home," said Raghu Kalluri, M.D., Ph.D., chair of cancer biology and an investigator on the study. "The study revealed a strong correlation between PGC-1α expression in invasive cancer cells and the formation of distant metastases in breast cancer patients."