In a study described in an article in the August issue of Developmental Dynamics, the laboratory groups of Mary J. C. Hendrix, at Feinberg, and of Robert A. Cornell, at The University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, showed that zebrafish embryos implanted with human metastatic melanoma cells provide molecular cues that suppress tumor development.

Hendrix is president and scientific director of the Children's Memorial Research Center, professor of pediatrics at Feinberg and a member of the executive committee of The Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University. Lisa M. J. Lee is the lead author on the study, and is a graduate student in the Hendrix laboratory.

The researchers found that fluorescently tagged human metastatic melanoma cells placed in the zebrafish embryo survive, are motile and divide. The melanoma cells do not form tumors in the embryonic microenvironment. Instead, they maintain their plastic phenotype, expressing genes that are characteristic of various cell types, including endothelial, neural and stem cells, and scatter throughout various spaces in the embryo.

One of the hallmarks of aggressive cancer cells, including malignant melanoma, is their unspecified, plastic nature, which is similar to that of embryonic stem cells, Hendrix explained.

The Hendrix lab has hypothesized that the unspecified or poorly differentiated phenotype serves as an advantage to cancer cells by enhancing their ability to migrate, invade and metastasize virtually undetected by the immune system.

Results of the group's earlier studies in mice led them to wonder whether malignant melanoma cells might respond to environmental cues present in an e
'"/>

Contact: Elizabeth Crown
e-crown@northwestern.edu
312-503-8928
Northwestern University
20-Jun-2005