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Metastasis

MALAT1 protects dormant tumor cells from immune elimination

Nature Cancer volume 5, pages 218–220 (2024)Cite this article

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Cancer cells seed distant tissues and remain dormant before re-entering the cell cycle to form metastases. How tumor dormancy is maintained and how cells exit dormancy is poorly understood. A study shows that the lncRNA MALAT1 reactivates dormant cancer cells by upregulating serpin protease inhibitors in tumor cells to evade CD8+ T cells.

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Fig. 1: MALAT1 upregulates serpins to block CD8+ T cell-triggered death to promote breast cancer cell metastasis.

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Acknowledgements

This manuscript was supported by US National Institutes of Health grant R01CA240955 (J.L.).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Immunology, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA

    Zhibin Zhang

  2. Program in Cellular and Molecular Medicine, Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Judy Lieberman

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  1. Zhibin Zhang
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  2. Judy Lieberman
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Correspondence to Zhibin Zhang or Judy Lieberman.

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Zhang, Z., Lieberman, J. MALAT1 protects dormant tumor cells from immune elimination. Nat Cancer 5, 218–220 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43018-023-00682-0

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