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Many cancers shed malignant cells, but such micrometastases usually fail to grow in their new locations. What encourages a micrometastasis to become a clinically apparent macrometastasis?
A multinational team studied pancreatic cancer in mice to investigate an interesting hypothesis: Exosomes (membrane vesicles of endocytic origin that contain lipids, DNA, RNA, and proteins) are released by malignant cells, travel to the liver, and prepare it to foster growth of metastatic cells. The team showed that exosomes released by pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma cells traveled to the liver and were “ingested” by Kupffer cells. The contents of the exosomes caused the Kupffer cells to elaborate various factors that fostered growth of micrometastases. I…