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UCI Faculty Profile

Our laboratory is interested in the role of normal tissue in promoting metastasis, the spread of tumor tissue throughout the body. Metastasis is a multistep process in which tumor cells invade into surrounding tissue, induce the formation of blood vessels (angiogenesis), invade into those vessels (intravasation), flow with the blood or lymph to a distant site, and invade the tissue of the new site. Many of these steps are characterized by movement of tumor cells from one compartment to another. Our studies focus on how this tumor cell movement may be induced by secretion of factors from the nearby normal tissue. We have learned that in the initial invasion step, normal mammary duct cells secrete a factor that increases the migratory ability of MCF-7 breast cancer cells. We are currently investigating the nature of this mammary motility factor. When these tumor cells are exposed to lymphocytes, as they might if they were to metastasize to a lymph node, secretion of tumor necrosis factor also increases the motility of these cells. We have recently developed an assay to study tumor cell movement into vascular-like structures, and we will be developing it as an in vitro assay of tumor intravasation and the role of endothelial cells in influencing this behavior in cancer cells.

Publications:

• Carpenter, P.M., Gatanaga, T., Nguyen, H.P., Hiserodt, J.C. Lymphocyte and Monocyte-induced Motility of MCF-7 Cells by Tumor Necrosis Factor a. Int. J. Cancer. 71: 64-70 (1997).
• Carpenter, P.M., Nguyen, H.P. Mammary Epithelium-induced Motility of MCF-7 Cells. Anti-Cancer Research 18:1063-8 (1998).