The investigators also implicated the activities of two signalling proteins called FAK and p130Cas in the rigidity-induced invadopodia activity. These signaling proteins were present in an activated state in the invadopodia, suggesting that they are important players in this response and may represent targets for anti-invasive therapies.
She said that it''s exciting to find a cellular mechanism that could explain why denser breast tissue is correlated with more aggressive tumours and a poorer prognosis for patients.
"The idea that tissue rigidity leads to a more aggressive phenotype had been out there for a while but it hadn''t actually been tied to matrix degradation, which is thought to be important for metastasis and spread of cells through the body," she said.
The report appears in Sept. 9 issue of Current Biology.
Source-ANI
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