Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related death with metastasis accounting around 90% of the total deaths. Metastasis is the successful colonization of tumor cells from one organ of the body to a secondary site. Small feet-like structures termed invadopodia play key role in this process, aiding tumor cell invasion by providing mechanical force and protein-degrading enzymes. Invadopodia have documented roles in helping tumor cells move through blood vessels but we do not know if they also help cancer cells move through the lymphatics. Movement through the lymphatics could be an important route of cancer cell movement and metastasis. Therefore, our work aims to understand the role of invadopodia during tumor cells invasion through the lymphatics system. In order to understand the role of these feet-like protrusions, loss of function assay approach was adopted in our experiments. To impair invadopodia formation, we removed part of a gene in breast cancer cells so that these cells cannot make a protein needed for invadopodia formation. We then looked to see if these cells could invade through a layer of lymphatic cells. We found that if cells could not form invadopodia it compromised their ability to invade through the lymphatics suggesting that invadopodia aid tumor cells invasion through the lymphatic system. Current studies are expanding on this work to better understand the role of invadopodia in lymphatic invasion using live-cell imaging in cells and lymphatic invasion in mice. Results from our studies will increase our understanding of tumor cell metastasis and will highlight the pathways cancer cells can take to form metastatic lesions.