Nature Communications (Jan 2016)

Tumour cell-derived Wnt7a recruits and activates fibroblasts to promote tumour aggressiveness

  • Alexandra Avgustinova,
  • Marjan Iravani,
  • David Robertson,
  • Antony Fearns,
  • Qiong Gao,
  • Pamela Klingbeil,
  • Andrew M. Hanby,
  • Valerie Speirs,
  • Erik Sahai,
  • Fernando Calvo,
  • Clare M. Isacke

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms10305
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 7, no. 1
pp. 1 – 14

Abstract

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How cancer-associated fibroblasts become activated to support metastasis is not well understood. Here, Avgustinova et al. show that tumour cell-derived Wnt7a activates TGFβ signaling in fibroblasts, inducing them to remodel the microenvironment to the state, which promotes tumour invasiveness and metastasis.