Interleukin-6: a bone marrow stromal cell paracrine signal that induces neuroendocrine differentiation and modulates autophagy in bone metastatic PCa cells.

ABSTRACT: Autophagy reallocates nutrients and clears normal cells of damaged proteins and organelles. In the context of metastatic disease, invading cancer cells hijack autophagic processes to survive and adapt in the host microenvironment. We sought to understand how autophagy is regulated in the metastatic niche for prostate cancer (PCa) cells where bone marrow stromal cell (BMSC) paracrine signaling induces PCa neuroendocrine differentiation (NED). In PCa, this transdifferentiation of metastatic PCa cells to neuronal-like cells correlates with advanced disease. Because autophagy provides a survival advantage for cancer cells and promotes cell differentiation, we hypothesized that autophagy mediates PCa NED in the bone. Thus, we determined the ability of paracrine factors in conditioned media (CM)

SUBMITTER: Delk NA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3405839 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature