Read Time:

A method for fooling breast cancer cells into fat cells has been discovered by researchers from the University of Basel. The team were able to transform EMT-derived breast cancer cells into fat cells in a mouse model of the disease – preventing the formation of metastases. The proof-of-concept study was published in the journal Cancer Cell.



Malignant cells can rapidly respond and adapt to changing microenvironmental conditions, by reactivating a cellular process called epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), enabling them to alter their molecular properties and transdifferentiate into a different type of cell (cellular plasticity).



Senior author of the study Gerhard Christofori, professor of biochemistry at the University of Basel, commented in a recent press release: "The breast cancer cells that underwent an EMT not only differentiated into fat cells, but also completely stopped proliferating.”



"As far as we can tell from long-term culture experiments, the cancer cells-turned-fat cells remain fat cells and do not revert back to breast cancer cells," he explained.





Epithelial-mesenchymal transition and cancer

Cancer cells marked in green and a fat cell marked in red on the surface of a tumor (left). After treatment (right), three former cancer cells have been converted into fat cells. The combined marking in green and red causes them to appear dark yellow. Credit: University of Basel, Department of Biomedicine

"Firstly, we demonstrate that breast cancer cells that undergo an EMT and thus become malignant, metastatic and therapy-resistant, exhibit a high degree of stemness, also referred to as plasticity. It is thus possible to convert these malignant cells into other cell types, as shown here by a conversion to adipocytes."



"Secondly, the conversion of malignant breast cancer cells into adipocytes not only changes their differentiation status but also represses their invasive properties and thus metastasis formation and their proliferation. Note that adipocytes do not proliferate anymore, they are called 'post-mitotic’, hence the therapeutic effect."



