In a study conducted in the Department of Molecular and Translational Medicine of the University of Brescia, published in the important international scientific journal Cancer Letters, a molecule that plays a key role in the metastatic process of embryonic rhabdomyosarcoma, a very aggressive tumor affecting children and adolescents, has been identified.
The work was conducted in the laboratories of Prof. Alessandro Fanzani and Roberto Ronca, professors at the University of Brescia and members of the Department of Molecular and Translational Medicine thanks to the experiments conducted by Dr. Silvia Codenotti, Dr. Fiorella Faggi, Dr. Paola Chiodelli and Dr. Elisabetta Grillo.
The multicenter study, funded by the AIRC, made use of the important collaboration with pediatricians and radiotherapists of the La Sapienza University of Rome and Carlo Bo of Urbino.
The data emerged from the study showed that the Caveolin-1 protein facilitates the process of dissemination of tumor cells from the circulatory stream to the lungs, promoting the formation of metastases. Furthermore, metastatic cells have been isolated “in vitro” to study the mechanisms that make them lethal. Metastatic rhabdomyosarcoma has a poor prognosis and having the ability to characterize new drugs opens up new therapeutic scenarios.
