Bone Resorption in Breast Cancer Metastasis

乳腺癌特别倾向于在骨骼中形成癌症转移，它的存在与骨骼破坏有关，经常导致严重的疼痛和残疾。骨骼似乎为乳腺癌细胞提供了肥沃的土壤，这些细胞已经从乳房的原始癌症部位转移到血管中。一旦肿瘤细胞从血管侵入骨髓间隙，它们就能够生长并诱导骨髓中的正常细胞破坏周围的硬骨。这使得肿瘤生长得更快。这些过程共同形成了一个恶性循环，导致骨转移的严重后果。在这个项目中，我们将研究患有乳腺癌的小鼠，以了解是什么使骨髓成为乳腺癌转移的肥沃和接受部位。特别是，我们正在研究骨更新和修复的正常过程是如何促进骨癌的建立的。我们将使用人体自身的骨骼保护蛋白，称为骨保护素，来测试阻止骨骼破坏将如何影响癌细胞入侵和在骨骼中生长的能力。这项研究有可能改变骨转移的治疗方式。如果可以对骨骼的肥沃土壤进行改造，阻断乳腺癌对骨骼的靶向，或者抑制其在骨骼上的生长，那么乳腺癌的治疗可能会得到显著改善。

Breast Cancer has a particular preference to form cancer metastases in bone where its presence is associated with bone destruction that frequently results in significant pain and disability. Bone seems to provide a fertile soil for breast cancer cells that have moved into the blood vessels from the original cancer site in the breast. Once tumour cells have invade bone marrow spaces from the blood vessels they are able to grow and induce the normal cells of the bone marrow to destroy the surrounding hard bone. This allows the tumour to grow faster. Together these processed create a vicious cycle that contributes to the serious consequences of bone metastases. In this project we will be studying mice with breast cancer to understand what makes the bone marrow such a fertile and receptive site for breast cancer metastasis. In particular, we are looking at how the normal processes of bone renewal and repair contribute to the establishment of cancer in bone. We will use the body's own bone protecting protein, called osteoprotegerin, to test how blocking bone destruction will affect the ability of cancer cells to invade and grow in bone. This study has the potential to change the way bone metastases are treated. Treatment of breast cancer could be significantly improved if the fertile soil of bone could be modified to either block the targeting of breast cancer to bone, or to inhibit its growth there.