Question

Cancer cells from a person suffering from malignant melanoma are analyzed and found to have an elevated ability to bind to laminin; they also secrete much higher than normal levels of a certain proteolytic enzyme activity. How would these differences from normal, control cells promote metastasis of these cancer cells?

Answer 1

Cells with receptors increase their abilities to bind to laminin, which are able to penetrate laminin-rich basement membranes more willingly and promote the process of metastasis. Cancer cells bind most devotedly to laminin-coated surfaces, that have the greatest metastatic potential when injected into laboratory mice and secrete proteolytic enzymes. Cancer cells secrete these enzymes likely to be highly invasive because these enzymes digest through extracellular barriers, such as basement membranes, which make the cells more invasive and more metastatic. They have the effect of facilitating the metastasis development.

The cell division, differentiation, and apoptosis is exceedingly similar in both normal and cancer cells. Cancer cells evade programmed cell death, although their multiple abnormalities form major targets for the process of apoptosis. Cells break through normal tissue limitations and metastasize and spread to new sites in the body in the late stages of cancer. Normal growth requires a balance between the activity of those genes, which promote cell proliferation. Cells become cancerous after the accumulation of mutations in the various genes, which regulate the process of cell proliferation.