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Cancer cells stock up in lymph vessels to survive

A cellular condition called oxidative stress can kill cancer cells. The finding that skin cancer cells evade such destruction using lipids acquired while passing through lymphatic vessels reveals a mechanism that boosts cancer spread.
  1. Barbara M. Grüner

    1. Barbara M. Grüner is in the Department of Medical Oncology, West German Cancer Center, University Hospital Essen at the University Duisburg-Essen, 45147 Essen, Germany, and at the German Cancer Consortium partner site at Essen.

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  2. Sarah-Maria Fendt

    1. Sarah-Maria Fendt is in the VIB-KU Leuven Center for Cancer Biology, VIB, 3000 Leuven, Belgium, and in the Department of Oncology, KU Leuven and Leuven Cancer Institute, Leuven.

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The spread of cancer to distant parts of the body, such as to a compartment of the lymphatic system called a lymph node, indicates a poor prognosis for many types of the disease. However, for certain tumours, such as the skin cancer melanoma, lymph-node removal to prevent this spread does not increase survival time1,2. This finding might be explained by observations suggesting that the lymphatic system (which helps to maintain fluid balance and provides immune cells with a route for their movement) supplies vessels that offer an entry point through which spreading cancer cells can reach blood vessels3,4 on their way to distant organs. Once they have travelled there, the cancer cells seed and form secondary tumours called metastases. Thus, lymph-node infiltration is not necessarily an endpoint, but rather a stopover on the cells’ journey elsewhere. Yet the advantage of this detour has been unclear. Writing in Nature, Ubellacker et al.5 reveal the boost that cancer cells receive in transit through the lymphatic system.

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Nature 585, 36-37 (2020)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-02383-5

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Competing Interests

S.-M.F. has received funding from Bayer AG, Merck and Black Belt Therapeutics, and has consulted for Fund+.

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