creepy videos on how cancer cells form tumors

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how cancer cells form tumors

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Cancer is a mysterious disease for many reasons. Chief among the unknowns are how and why tumors form.

Two University of Iowa studies offer key insights by recording in real time, and in 3–D, the movements of cancerous human breast tissue cells. It's believed to be the first time cancer cells' motion and accretion into tumors has been continuously tracked. (See accompanying videos.)


Researchers at the University of Iowa tracked in real time the movement of individual cells and cancerous breast tissue cells. The top video shows healthy cells. The bottom video shows how the cancerous cells extend and probe for other cells, then reel in cells to form ever-larger tumors. It's believed to be the first time that tumor creation has been shown in continuous, real time. Video courtesy of Soll Laboratory.

The team discovered that cancerous cells actively recruit healthy cells into tumors by extending a cable of sorts to grab their neighbors—both cancerous and healthy—and reel them in. Moreover, the Iowa researchers report that as little as five percent of cancerous cells are needed to form the tumors, a ratio that heretofore had been unknown.

"It's not like things sticking to each other," said David Soll, biology professor at the UI and corresponding author on the paper, published in the American Journal of Cancer Research. "It's that these cells go out and actively recruit. It's complicated stuff, and it's not passive. No one had a clue that there were specialized cells in this process, and that it's a small number that pulls all the rest in."

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