Using a new type of human organ chip to reveal the molecular mechanism of ovarian cancer using platelets to metastasize cancer

  Recently, in a research report published in the international journal Blood Advances, scientists from Texas A&M University and other institutions revealed the interaction between ovarian cancer tumors, blood vessels, and platelets through research. They found that ovarian cancer may break The vascular barrier allows it to communicate with blood cells such as platelets. When these tumors communicate with platelets, they begin to metastasize or spread to other parts of the body.

  At present, researchers believe that platelets may be an inducer of ovarian cancer metastasis, but they do not know exactly what mechanism can introduce platelets into tumor cells. Compared with studying the mystery in animal models, it is very difficult. In this study, the researchers proposed a new type of solution, namely, organs-on-a-chip research. The human organ chip is a microsomal medical device the size of a USB drive. Researchers have designed the OvCa chip to make it easier to observe the interaction process between tumors and platelets.

  Researcher Jain explained that a special microenvironment can promote co-cultivation of ovarian tumor cells and blood vessels, and then the tumor can interact with blood cells, and then researchers can further study how the drug affects the other Interaction between people. Observing the interaction between tumors and blood vessels on OvCa chips can give researchers unexpected results. They pointed out that tumor cells will systematically decompose endothelial cells, which are arranged on the inner wall of blood vessels to block the external environment and blood cells. Once the barrier is broken, blood cells such as platelets will enter the tumor microenvironment and be recruited by cancer cells to promote cancer metastasis.

  The use of relevant research results may be expected to help clinicians develop new therapies for the treatment of ovarian cancer. At the same time, the researchers pointed out that some anti-vascular drugs may also be used in combination with anti-cancer therapies. The advantage of the human organ chip is that it can treat These new drug therapies and drug combinations are used for monitoring and testing. The other use of the chip is to diagnose diseases. Researcher Jain said that we must be clear that these chips are living chips, which contain living cells, and their advantage is that they may be Real human samples, so in the future, this new technology may help us develop new personalized therapies, so that we can extract stem cells and other cells from patients, and use these cells to make a complete chip for a single patient for in-depth study of patients Of disease progression.