There exists, in some cancers, some abnormal cells similar to stem cells. These cells are as factories that are working overtime. They quickly produce a copy of their own and from time to time generate some variations. What’s worse, those cells can spread to other tissues of the body, and eventually leading to cancer metastasis.

 
Researchers in Salk institution found that, Sox10 can determine whether cells will transform into this horrible factory. The new understanding of Sox10 will help people develop more effective cancer treatments and overcome the resistance of cancer cells.

 
“Cancer is not uniform, and the cancer cells need to adapt to different micro-environments. This makes the cancer cells have different properties-some are sensitive to treatment, while some have resistance. Tumor heterogeneity is a major problem faced by cancer treatment. To fight cancer effectively, this is a must challenge we have to face.” said professor Geoffrey Wahl, senior author of this report. “we found that, Sox10 is the primary regulator for cancer cells to adapt to different tumor microenvironment.”

 
For example, there exists cancer stem cell activity in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), a kind of special breast cancer where estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR) and human epidermal growth factor receptor (HER2) were negative. TNBC accounts for 20% of breast cancers in US. Like TNBC, highly invasive melanoma also has a high level of Sox10.

 
Sox10, a kind of genes that have control over cell differentiation, is expressed at high levels in normal breast tissue and breast cancer stem cells. Christopher Dravis, first author of this study found that some special breast cells have strong ability to generate different types of cells and Sox10 are expressed at high levels in those cells. If Sox10 were removed from those cells, then the cells would lose such differentiation ability.

 
“Our data suggests that, Sox10 is related to the most dangerous ability of tumor, including growth ability, plasticity and diffusion capacity. This shows that, Sox10 might play a fatal role in breast cancer development.” Drais said.

 
Next, the researchers will try to remove Sox10 and see if we can fight cancer and block metastasis. “We wish to further explore this critical gene and try to find ways to inhibit the impetus of tumor development.” Dravis introduced. In addition, Sox10 also can help detect metastasis of breast cancer.”