Submitted Successfully!
To reward your contribution, here is a gift for you: A free trial for our video production service.
Thank you for your contribution! You can also upload a video entry or images related to this topic.
Version Summary Created by Modification Content Size Created at Operation
1 Unveiling the molecular events that underlie intratumor heterogeneity in terms of therapy resistance together with using preclinical assays under optimal conditions to avoid misinformation, more appropriate experimental design, and rigorous data interpret + 595 word(s) 595 2020-02-17 03:43:56 |
2 format change -3 word(s) 592 2020-02-25 04:55:48 | |
3 format change + 5 word(s) 597 2020-10-27 03:49:14 |

Video Upload Options

Do you have a full video?

Confirm

Are you sure to Delete?
Cite
If you have any further questions, please contact Encyclopedia Editorial Office.
Mirzayans, R.; Murray, D. Cancer Cell Fusion. Encyclopedia. Available online: https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/303 (accessed on 29 March 2024).
Mirzayans R, Murray D. Cancer Cell Fusion. Encyclopedia. Available at: https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/303. Accessed March 29, 2024.
Mirzayans, Razmik, David Murray. "Cancer Cell Fusion" Encyclopedia, https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/303 (accessed March 29, 2024).
Mirzayans, R., & Murray, D. (2020, February 18). Cancer Cell Fusion. In Encyclopedia. https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/303
Mirzayans, Razmik and David Murray. "Cancer Cell Fusion." Encyclopedia. Web. 18 February, 2020.
Cancer Cell Fusion
Edit

"A major challenge in treating cancer is posed by intratumor heterogeneity, with different sub-populations of cancer cells within the same tumor exhibiting therapy resistance through different biological processes. These include therapy-induced dormancy, apoptosis reversal (anastasis), and cell fusion. Unfortunately, such responses are often overlooked or misinterpreted as “death” in commonly used preclinical assays.This entry highlights the dark side of cell fusion in metastasis and therapy resistance of solid tumors."

Cancer therapy cell fusion dormancy colony formation assay high-throughput assays.

1. Introduction

"Cancer cell fusion has emerged as a fundamental non-genetic mechanism that contributes to intratumor heterogeneity, resulting in tumor progression (invasive growth and metastasis) and therapy resistance".

2. Role of Cancer Cell Fusion in Metastasis and Therapy Resistance

"As recently pointed out by different authors[1][2][3][4], the potential role of fusion between cancer cells and motile leukocytes in promoting metastasis was proposed by the German pathologist Prof. Otto Aichel nearly a century ago. This intriguing hypothesis remained controversial during the 20th century when the somatic mutation theory of carcinogenesis was the dominant force driving cancer research. In the past decade, however, a significant number of reports have underscored the importance of cell fusion in tumor progression and therapy resistance in a wide range of malignancies (e.g., [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]). In a recent study reported by Gast and associates [9], for example, cancer cell-leukocyte hybrids were detected in peripheral blood of cancer patients, and the numbers of such hybrids in the patient’s blood correlated with disease stage and predicted overall survival. In addition, cancer cells obtained from metastatic tumors of women who years earlier had received a bone marrow transplant from a male donor were shown to carry a Y chromosome, indicating that metastasis originated from fusion between patient cancer cells and donor bone marrow cells[9]. In that study, the Y chromosome was present in metastatic cancers of all patients that were examined, which involved women with kidney, head and neck, lung, and pancreatic cancers[9].

As noted by those authors, the presence of tumor cells with acquired leukocyte phenotypes “supports a cell fusion mechanism in the propagation of intratumor heterogeneity, introduces a functionally significant aspect of tumor progression and evolution, identifies an unappreciated circulating hybrid cell population, and uncovers a new area of tumor cell biology”[9].

In addition to cancer cell–leukocyte fusion, fusion between cancer and cancer cells[11][12][13], between cancer and stem cells[14][15][16][17], and between cancer and stromal cells[18][19] are also known to promote tumor progression/therapy resistance. Fusion between different cell types within a solid tumor is perhaps not unexpected given that “a tumor tissue resembles chronically inflamed tissue, that chronically inflamed tumor tissue efficiently recruits macrophages, mesenchymal stem cells and hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells, that chronic inflammatory conditions are a positive trigger for cell fusion”[10].

Fused cells undergo heterokaryon-to-synkaryon transition, reflecting nuclear fusion, which results in a loss and/or re-sorting of chromosomes in a random manner[10]. These events give rise to unique hybrid cells in which the degree of aneuploidy/genomic instability is further enhanced during subsequent rounds of cell division. Fused cells and most (but not all)[20]of their hybrid descendants exhibit increased resistance to anticancer agents relative to their unfused parental cells when assessed in vitro (e.g., using flow cytometric approaches)[20]and in tumor growth studies with live animals[12][20].

Fusions can occur between several cells simultaneously within a tumor, causing the formation of PGCCs, which underlie therapy resistance, metastasis, and disease recurrence as outlined above (Section 3.1). In human glioblastoma cell cultures, for example, the formation of PGCCs following exposure to ionizing radiation has been reported to be largely associated with homotypic cell fusion[11]."

References

  1. J.M. Pawelek; Fusion of bone marrow-derived cells with cancer cells: metastasis as a secondary disease in cancer. Chinese Journal of Cancer 2014, 33, 133-139, 10.5732/cjc.013.10243.
  2. G. A. Clawson; Fusion for Moving. Science 2013, 342, 699-700, 10.1126/science.1244270.
  3. Greggory S. Laberge; Eric Duvall; Kay Haedicke; J.M. Pawelek; Leukocyte–Cancer Cell Fusion—Genesis of a Deadly Journey. Cells 2019, 8, 170, 10.3390/cells8020170.
  4. Erhui Jiang; Tinglin Yan; Zhi Xu; Zhengjun Shang; Tumor Microenvironment and Cell Fusion.. BioMed Research International 2019, 2019, 5013592-12, 10.1155/2019/5013592.
  5. Daniel Bastida-Ruiz; Kylie Van Hoesen; Marie Cohen; The Dark Side of Cell Fusion. International Journal of Molecular Sciences 2016, 17, 638, 10.3390/ijms17050638.
  6. Jeffrey Platt; Xiaofeng Zhou; Adam R. Lefferts; Marilia Cascalho; Cell Fusion in the War on Cancer: A Perspective on the Inception of Malignancy. International Journal of Molecular Sciences 2016, 17, 1118, 10.3390/ijms17071118.
  7. Clara Fernandes; Priyanka Prabhu; Kapil Juvale; Divya Suares; Mayur Y C; Cancer cell fusion: a potential target to tackle drug-resistant and metastatic cancer cells. Drug Discovery Today 2019, 24, 1836-1844, 10.1016/j.drudis.2019.05.024.
  8. Gary Clawson; The Fate of Fusions. Cells 2018, 8, 13, 10.3390/cells8010013.
  9. Charles E. Gast; Alain D. Silk; Luai Zarour; Lara Riegler; Joshua G. Burkhart; Kyle T. Gustafson; Michael S. Parappilly; Minna Roh-Johnson; James R. Goodman; Brennan Olson; Mark Schmidt; John R. Swain; Paige S. Davies; Vidya Shasthri; Shinji Iizuka; Patrick Flynn; Spencer Watson; James Korkola; Sara A. Courtneidge; Jared M. Fischer; Jerry Jaboin; Kevin G. Billingsley; Charles D. Lopez; Julja Burchard; Joe Gray; Lisa M Coussens; Brett C. Sheppard; Melissa H. Wong; Cell fusion potentiates tumor heterogeneity and reveals circulating hybrid cells that correlate with stage and survival. Science Advances 2018, 4, eaat7828, 10.1126/sciadv.aat7828.
  10. Benjamin Berndt; Kurt S. Zanker; Thomas Dittmar; Cell fusion is a potent inducer of aneuploidy and drug resistance in tumor cell/ normal cell hybrids.. Critical Reviews™ in Oncogenesis 2013, 18, 97-113, 10.1615/critrevoncog.v18.i1-2.60.
  11. Ekjot Kaur; Jacinth Rajendra; Shailesh Jadhav; Epari Shridhar; Jayant Sastri Goda; Aliasgar Moiyadi; Shilpee Dutt; Radiation-induced homotypic cell fusions of innately resistant glioblastoma cells mediate their sustained survival and recurrence. Carcinogenesis 2015, 36, 685-695, 10.1093/carcin/bgv050.
  12. V Carloni; Antonio Mazzocca; Tommaso Mello; Andrea Galli; S Capaccioli; Cell fusion promotes chemoresistance in metastatic colon carcinoma. Oncogene 2012, 32, 2649-2660, 10.1038/onc.2012.268.
  13. Fei Fei; Chunyuan Li; Xinlu Wang; Jiaxing Du; Kai Liu; Bo Li; Peiyu Yao; Yuwei Li; Shiwu Zhang; Syncytin 1, CD9, and CD47 regulating cell fusion to form PGCCs associated with cAMP/PKA and JNK signaling pathway.. Cancer Medicine 2019, 8, 3047-3058, 10.1002/cam4.2173.
  14. Thomas Dittmar; Sarah Schwitalla; Jeanette Seidel; Sonja Haverkampf; Georg Reith; Sönke Meyer-Staeckling; Burkhard Brandt; Bernd Niggemann; Kurt S. Zänker; Characterization of hybrid cells derived from spontaneous fusion events between breast epithelial cells exhibiting stem-like characteristics and breast cancer cells. Clinical & Experimental Metastasis 2010, 28, 75-90, 10.1007/s10585-010-9359-3.
  15. Christa Nagler; Cornelia Hardt; Kurt S. Zänker; Thomas Dittmar; Co-cultivation of murine BMDCs with 67NR mouse mammary carcinoma cells give rise to highly drug resistant cells. Cancer Cell International 2011, 11, 21-21, 10.1186/1475-2867-11-21.
  16. Ran Wang; Shuxun Chen; Changxian Li; Kevin Tak-Pan Ng; Chi-Wing Kong; Jinping Cheng; Shuk-Han Cheng; Ronald A. Li; Chung-Mau Lo; Kwan Man; Dong Sun; Fusion with stem cell makes the hepatocellular carcinoma cells similar to liver tumor-initiating cells.. BMC Cancer 2016, 16, 56, 10.1186/s12885-016-2094-7.
  17. Jianguo Xue; Yuan Zhu; Zixuan Sun; Runbi Ji; Xu Zhang; Wenrong Xu; Xiao Yuan; Bin Zhang; Yongmin Yan; Lei Yin; Huijuan Xu; Leilei Zhang; Wei Zhu; Hui Qian; Tumorigenic hybrids between mesenchymal stem cells and gastric cancer cells enhanced cancer proliferation, migration and stemness.. BMC Cancer 2015, 15, 793, 10.1186/s12885-015-1780-1.
  18. Germana Rappa; Javier Mercapide; A Lorico; Spontaneous Formation of Tumorigenic Hybrids between Breast Cancer and Multipotent Stromal Cells Is a Source of Tumor Heterogeneity. The American Journal of Pathology 2012, 180, 2504-2515, 10.1016/j.ajpath.2012.02.020.
  19. Ruoxiang Wang; Xiaojuan Sun; Christopher Y. Wang; Peizhen Hu; Chia-Yi Chu; Shurong Liu; Haiyen E. Zhau; Leland W. K. Chung; Spontaneous Cancer-Stromal Cell Fusion as a Mechanism of Prostate Cancer Androgen-Independent Progression. PLOS ONE 2012, 7, e42653, 10.1371/journal.pone.0042653.
  20. Stephen C. Searles; Endi K. Santosa; Jack Bui; Cell-cell fusion as a mechanism of DNA exchange in cancer. Oncotarget 2017, 9, 6156-6173, 10.18632/oncotarget.23715.
More
Information
Contributors MDPI registered users' name will be linked to their SciProfiles pages. To register with us, please refer to https://encyclopedia.pub/register : ,
View Times: 867
Revisions: 3 times (View History)
Update Date: 27 Oct 2020
1000/1000