科學新進展：將乳腺癌細胞轉為脂肪細胞

Researchers have been able to coax human breast cancer cells to turn into fat cells in a new proof-of-concept study in mice.

在對老鼠進行的概念論證研究中，研究員可以誘騙人類乳腺癌細胞轉變?yōu)橹炯毎?/p>

To achieve this feat, the team exploited a weird pathway that metastasising cancer cells have; their results are just a first step, but it's a truly promising approach.

為了取得這項功績，團隊利用轉移性癌細胞的奇特通路。他們的結果只是第一步，但是確實是個很有前途的方法。

When you cut your finger, or when a foetus grows organs, the epithelium cells begin to look less like themselves, and more 'fluid' – changing into a type of stem cell called a mesenchyme and then reforming into whatever cells the body needs.

你切到手指的時候，胎兒長器官的時候，上皮細胞開始看起來不那么像他們自己了，更加像“液體”，變成一種叫做間質的干細胞，然后變成身體需要的任何一種細胞。

This process is called epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and it's been known for a while that cancer can use both this one and the opposite pathway called MET (mesenchymal‐ o‐epithelial transition), to spread throughout the body and metastasise.

這個過程叫做上皮細胞-間充質轉化(EMT)。大家已經知道了一段時間，癌細胞既可以用這種方式也可以用相反的叫做EMT(間充質-上皮細胞轉化)的方式在體內擴散轉移。

The researchers took mice implanted with an aggressive form of human breast cancer, and treated them with both a diabetic drug called rosiglitazone and a cancer treatment called trametinib.

研究人員在小鼠體內植入一種攻擊性的人乳腺癌細胞，用治療糖尿病的藥物羅格列酮和治療癌癥的藥物曲美替尼治療小鼠。

Thanks to these drugs, when cancer cells used one of the above-mentioned transition pathways, instead of spreading they changed from cancer into fat cells – a process called adipogenesis.

多虧了這些藥物，當癌細胞用上述的其中一種轉變方式，而不是擴散時，它們從癌細胞轉變?yōu)榱酥炯毎?。這種過程叫做脂肪形成。

"The models used in this study have allowed the evaluation of disseminating cancer cell adipogenesis in the immediate tumour surroundings," the team wrote in their paper, published in January 2019.

團隊在2019年1月發(fā)表的論文中寫道， “這項研究中使用的模式允許對直接腫瘤環(huán)境中擴散癌細胞的脂肪形成進行評估。”

"The results indicate that in a patient-relevant setting combined therapy with rosiglitazone and trametinib specifically targets cancer cells with increased plasticity and induces their adipogenesis."

“結果顯示，在與病人相關的環(huán)境中，使用羅格列酮和曲美替尼的療法特別針對具有可塑性的癌細胞，引導它們進行脂肪形成。”

Although not every cancer cell changed into a fat cell, the ones that underwent adipogenesis didn't change back.

雖然不是每個癌細胞都會轉變?yōu)橹炯毎呀洶l(fā)生了脂肪形成的細胞不會變回來。