Modeling the role of urokinase plasminogen activator, uPA, and circulating Cancer-Associated Fibroblasts (cCAFS) in breast cancer cell extravasation.

ABSTRACT: Circulating Cancer-Associated Fibroblasts (cCAFs) have been discovered in circulating tumor cell clusters from all stages of disease progression in breast cancer patients. We have shown that CAFs promote lung metastases in the mouse tail vein model when they are clustered with triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) MDA-MB231 cells. Following on this observation, we saw that MDA-MB231-luciferase labeled cells persist at higher levels when present in CAF23/MDA-MB231 co-clusters compared to MDA-MB231 mono-clusters within the first 3 days after tail vein injection. This prompted us to investigate whether CAFs aid cancer cell extravasation from capillary venules into the lung parenchyma, which would impart better survival and faster seeding of metastases. Ex vivo lung extravasation assays showed

SUBMITTER: Spartz A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12262346 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature