Respiratory infections can reactivate dormant breast cancer cells
Researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Montefiore Einstein Comprehensive Cancer Center (MECCC), and Utrecht University have found the first direct evidence that common respiratory infections, including COVID-19 and influenza, can awaken dormant breast cancer cells that have spread to the lungs, setting the stage for new metastatic tumors. The findings published today in Nature, obtained in mice, were supported by research showing increases in death and in metastatic lung disease among cancer survivors infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The study was led by senior author and deputy director of CU Cancer Center James DeGregori, Ph.D., and also co-led by Mercedes Rincon, Ph.D., with CU Anschutz, and Roel Vermeulen, Ph.D., of Utrecht University, The Netherlands, and Imperial College London. "This complex and multidisciplinary study truly took a village," said Dr. DeGregori. Arousing 'sleeper cells' in mice Prior to the ...