Platelets, the wound-patching warriors of the bloodstream, also have a more sinister role: priming cancer cells for metastasis, the establishment of tumours in parts of the body distant from the original site.
Richard Hynes and his colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge injected mice with colon- and breast-cancer cells that had been incubated with platelets. Fourteen days later, the mice displayed many more metastases in their lungs than did mice injected with cells not incubated with platelets.
Platelets secrete a signalling protein called TGF-β, which acts on the cancer cells. Direct contact between platelets and cancer cells activates a protein, NFκB, in the cells. Both events make these cells more invasive. Deleting TGF-β solely in platelets or inhibiting NFκB in the tumour cells suppressed the lung metastases.
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Platelets signal cells to invade. Nature 479, 448 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/479448b
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/479448b
