Researchers at Tel Aviv University’s Gray School of Medicine and Health Sciences have found that immune cells called neutrophils may be a potential target for new drugs and diagnostic markers for advanced breast cancer. The findings help understand how the tumor microenvironment promotes disease progression.
The study found that two cell types – neutrophils, which reside near cancer cells, and endothelial cells, which are responsible for blood vessel growth – were particularly prominent in advanced breast cancer tissue. Neutrophils appear to promote tumor progression, while endothelial cells help supply blood to cancerous areas.
The study, conducted at the Gray School’s Department of Clinical Microbiology and Immunology, was led by Dr. Sandra Camargo and doctoral student Ori Moskowitz, and supervised by Dr. Merav Cohen. Their research focused on how breast cancer cells and neutrophils interact in the tumor microenvironment, aiming to reveal how cancer manipulates the immune response to survive and spread.
Camargo and Moskowitz described how neutrophils release signals that help cancer cells invade nearby tissue and form new blood vessels, rather than attacking tumors. They say this process increases the cancer’s aggressiveness and sets the stage for tumor growth.
Two independent experiments supported the study’s conclusions. One study showed that patients with advanced breast cancer had reduced survival if they had elevated molecular markers associated with neutrophil activity. Another study showed that when neutrophil activity was inhibited in mice with advanced breast cancer, tumor growth and blood vessel development were significantly reduced.
The research team also included other contributors from Dr. Cohen’s laboratory – Maiia Levinson, Roy Balaban, Shani Gola, Alice Raizman and Kelly Lipczyc – and colleagues from the Gray School, including Professors Yaron Carmi, Amir Sonnenblick, Alon Richter, Noa Keren-Khadmy and Yael Dugach. Researchers from the Weizmann Institute of Science and other institutions in the Netherlands also participated in the project.
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