{"id":49775,"date":"2016-04-13T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-04-12T23:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pcb.ub.edu\/how-tissue-stiffness-activates-cancer\/"},"modified":"2020-11-18T14:59:39","modified_gmt":"2020-11-18T13:59:39","slug":"how-tissue-stiffness-activates-cancer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pcb.ub.edu\/en\/how-tissue-stiffness-activates-cancer\/","title":{"rendered":"How tissue stiffness activates cancer"},"content":{"rendered":"

This discovery is the result of many years\u2019 work spent studying the forces that cells apply to their surrounding tissue \u2013 forces which determine how cells proliferate, differentiate, and move, which in turn sheds light on how development, tumorigenesis or wound healing are regulated. The discovery belongs to a family of patents in place.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost solid tumours are stiffer than normal tissue; for example, breast cancer is usually screened by detecting hard lumps in the breast,\u201d explains junior group leader at IBEC and assistant professor at the University of Barcelona Pere Roca-Cusachs, who led the research. \u201cWhat\u2019s more, increasing or decreasing tissue stiffness can enhance or impair tumour progression respectively.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJust as you would need to sit on or press a mattress to know how soft it is, cells must apply forces to their surroundings to detect stiffness,\u201d says Alberto Elosegui-Artola, first author on the paper. \u201cThey do this through different molecules including integrins, which directly bind cells to their surrounding extracellular matrix, and talin, which connects integrins to the cytoskeleton, or body, of the cell.\u201d<\/p>\n

The researchers discovered that, when cells pull from those molecules while applying forces, if the substrate is stiff, the force unfolds talin, which exposes a binding domain to vinculin, which then binds and triggers the activation of YAP \u2013 one of the major players in tumour progression. If the substrate is soft, however, the force is applied slower, causing integrins to unbind from the tissue before talin can unfold, so YAP is not activated.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an important first step that opens the way towards the eventual development of a new strategy that could impair the growth of many types of cancer: breast, lung, prostate, skin, and many others,\u201d says Pere.<\/p>\n

The work was funded in part by the Fundaci\u00f3 la Marat\u00f3 de TV3.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2022 Reference article:<\/strong>
\nAlberto Elosegui-Artola, Roger Oria, Yunfeng Chen, Anita Kosmalska, Carlos P\u00e9rez-Gonz\u00e1lez, Natalia Castro, Cheng Zhu, Xavier Trepat, Pere Roca-Cusachs (2016). Mechanical regulation of a molecular clutch defines force transmission and transduction in response to matrix rigidity<\/em>.\u00a0Nature Cell Biology.\u00a0DOI: 10.1038\/ncb3336<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Researchers at IBEC<\/a>\u00a0and their collaborators at the Georgia Institute of Technology \u00a0(Georgia Tech<\/a>), publishing today in\u00a0Nature Cell Biology, have identified the mechanism by which tissue stiffness activates a protein called YAP, a major oncogene. The\u00a0new knowledge could potentially lead to new strategies to impair or even halt the growth of tumours.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":54182,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHow tissue stiffness activates cancer - Parc Cient\u00edfic de Barcelona<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pcb.ub.edu\/en\/how-tissue-stiffness-activates-cancer\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How tissue stiffness activates cancer - Parc Cient\u00edfic de Barcelona\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Researchers at IBEC\u00a0and their collaborators at the Georgia Institute of Technology \u00a0(Georgia Tech), publishing today in\u00a0Nature Cell Biology, have identified the mechanism by which tissue stiffness activates a protein called YAP, a major oncogene. 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