Skip to main content
Home

Information for:

  • Alumni
  • Applicants
  • Current Students
  • Staff
  • Parents
  • Job Vacancies
  • Covid-19
  • Cymraeg
My country:

Main Menu

    • Clearing 2025
      • Clearing Courses
      • Apply Online
      • Call our Clearing Helpline
      • Clearing Live Chat
      • Offer Holder Hub
      • Book Clearing Open Day
    • Accommodation
      • Accommodation Guarantee
      • Find Your Perfect Room
    • About us
      • Virtual Tour
      • Why study in North Wales
      • Our Location
      • Student Clubs and Societies
      • Student Life
      • Reasons to study locally

    Clearing Open Days

    • Undergraduate
      • A–Z of Courses
      • Subject Areas
      • Clearing 2025
      • How to Apply
      • Already Applied
      • Offer Holders' Hub
      • Fees and Finances
      • Scholarship and Bursaries
      • Widening Access
      • Study in Welsh
      • Part-Time Study
      • Degree Apprenticeships
      • Study or Work Abroad
      • Work Experience
      • Student Accommodation
      • Pocket Prospectus
      • Academic Calendar
    • Postgraduate Taught
      • A-Z of Courses
      • Subject Areas
      • How to Apply
      • Fees and Finances
      • Scholarships and Bursaries
      • Executive Education
      • January Start
      • Part-Time Study
      • Short Courses and CPD
      • A-Z of Short Courses and CPD
    • Postgraduate Research
      • A-Z of Courses
      • Subject Areas
      • How to Apply
      • Funding
      • The Doctoral School

    Find a Course

    Clearing 2025

    Offer Holders' Hub

    Order a Pocket Prospectus

    Open Days

    Virtual Tour

    • Student Life
      • Student Life Home
      • Bangor and the Area
      • Social Life and Entertainment
      • Student Accommodation
      • Clubs and Societies
      • Sport
      • Virtual Tour
      • Videos and Vlogs
    • Your Experience at Bangor
      • Welcome 2024
      • Student Support
      • Skills and Employability
      • Study or Work Abroad
      • Fees and Finances
      • Student Ambassadors

    Student Profiles

    Student Videos and Vlogs

    Welcome Week

    Virtual Tour

    • Choose Bangor
      • International Home
      • Why Bangor?
      • Location
      • Accommodation
      • Student Support
      • Contact Us
      • Bangor University's China website
    • Apply
      • Entry Requirements
      • Tuition Fees and Scholarships
      • How to Apply
      • Already Applied
      • Study Abroad (Incoming)
      • Exchanges (Incoming)
      • Worldwide Partners

    Clearing 2025

    Country Specific Information

    Bangor University International College

    Find a Course

    • Research
      • Research Home
      • About Our Research
      • Research in our Academic Schools
      • Research Institutes and Centres
      • Research Portal
      • Integrated Research and Impact Support (IRIS) Service
      • Energy
      • REF 2021
      • Research News
    • Postgraduate Research Opportunities
      • Postgraduate Research
      • Doctoral School
    • Events and Training Opportunities
      • Researcher Development

    Royal Recognition: 2023 Queen's Anniversary Prize

    Bangor Research In Top 30 For Societal Impact In UK

    • The University
      • About Us
      • Our Mission
      • Strategy 2030
      • Annual Report & Financial Statements
      • Our Location
      • Academic Schools and Colleges
      • Services and Facilities
      • Vice-Chancellor's Office
      • Working with Business
      • Working with the Community
      • Sustainability
      • Health and Wellbeing
      • Contact Us
    • Working for Us
      • Job Vacancies
    • University Management and Governance
      • Policies and Procedures
      • Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement
      • Management and Governance
    • University and the Community
      • Pontio
      • Sports Facilities
      • Conference Facilities
      • Places to Eat and Drink
      • Public Events
      • Widening Access
      • Services to Schools
    • Business Services
      • Business Services Home
    • Collaboration Hub
      • Collaboration Hub
    • Conferencing and Business Dining
      • Conferencing Facilities
      • Business Dining
    • Intellectual Property (IP) and Commercialisation
      • Intellectual Property (IP) and Commercialisation
    • News
      • Current News
      • Research News
      • Student News
    • Events
      • Events
    • Announcements
      • Flag Announcements

    140th Anniversary

    Public Lectures

    • Clearing 2025
      • Clearing Courses
      • Apply Online
      • Book Clearing Open Day
      • Call our Clearing Helpline
      • Clearing Live Chat
      • Offer Holder Hub
    • Accommodation
      • Accommodation Guarantee
      • Find Your Perfect Room
    • About us
      • Virtual Tour
      • Why study in North Wales
      • Our Location
      • Student Clubs and Societies
      • Student Life
      • Reasons to study locally

    Clearing Open Days

    • Undergraduate
      • A–Z of Courses
      • Subject Areas
      • Clearing 2025
      • How to Apply
      • Already Applied
      • Offer Holders' Hub
      • Fees and Finances
      • Scholarship and Bursaries
      • Widening Access
      • Study in Welsh
      • Part-Time Study
      • Degree Apprenticeships
      • Study or Work Abroad
      • Work Experience
      • Student Accommodation
      • Pocket Prospectus
      • Academic Calendar
    • Postgraduate Taught
      • A-Z of Courses
      • Subject Areas
      • How to Apply
      • Fees and Finances
      • Scholarships and Bursaries
      • Executive Education
      • January Start
      • Part-Time Study
      • Short Courses and CPD
      • A-Z of Short Courses and CPD
    • Postgraduate Research
      • A-Z of Courses
      • Subject Areas
      • How to Apply
      • Funding
      • The Doctoral School

    Find a Course

    Clearing 2025

    Offer Holders' Hub

    Order a Pocket Prospectus

    Open Days

    Virtual Tour

    • Student Life
      • Student Life Home
      • Bangor and the Area
      • Social Life and Entertainment
      • Student Accommodation
      • Clubs and Societies
      • Sport
      • Virtual Student Experience
      • Videos and Vlogs
    • Your Experience at Bangor
      • Welcome 2024
      • Student Support
      • Skills and Employability
      • Study or Work Abroad
      • Fees and Finances
      • Student Ambassadors

    Student Profiles

    Student Videos and Vlogs

    Welcome Week

    Virtual Tour

    • Choose Bangor
      • International Home
      • Why Bangor?
      • Location
      • Accommodation
      • Student Support
      • Contact Us
      • Bangor University's China website
    • Apply
      • Entry Requirements
      • Tuition Fees and Scholarships
      • How to Apply
      • Already Applied
      • Study Abroad (Incoming)
      • Exchanges (Incoming)
      • Worldwide Partners

    Clearing 2025

    Country Specific Information

    Bangor University International College

    Find a Course

    • Research
      • Research Home
      • About Our Research
      • Research in our Academic Schools
      • Research Institutes and Centres
      • Research Portal
      • Integrated Research and Impact Support (IRIS) Service
      • Energy
      • REF 2021
      • Research News
    • Postgraduate Research Opportunities
      • Postgraduate Research
      • Doctoral School
    • Events and Training Opportunities
      • Researcher Development

    Royal Recognition: 2023 Queen's Anniversary Prize

    Bangor Research In Top 30 For Societal Impact In UK

    • The University
      • About Us
      • Our Mission
      • Strategy 2030
      • Annual Report & Financial Statements
      • Our Location
      • Academic Schools and Colleges
      • Services and Facilities
      • Vice-Chancellor's Office
      • Working with Business
      • Working with the Community
      • Sustainability
      • Health and Wellbeing
      • Contact Us
    • Working for Us
      • Job Vacancies
    • University Management and Governance
      • Policies and Procedures
      • Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement
      • Management and Governance
    • University and the Community
      • Pontio
      • Sports Facilities
      • Conference Facilities
      • Places to Eat and Drink
      • Public Events
      • Widening Access
      • Services to Schools
    • Business Services
      • Business Services Home
    • Collaboration Hub
      • Collaboration Hub
    • Conferencing and Business Dining
      • Conferencing Facilities
      • Business Dining
    • Intellectual Property (IP) and Commercialisation
      • Intellectual Property (IP) and Commercialisation
    • News
      • Current News
      • Research News
      • Student News
    • Events
      • Events
    • Announcements
      • Flag Announcements

    140th Anniversary

    Public Lectures

Information for:

  • Alumni
  • Applicants
  • Current Students
  • Staff
  • Parents
  • Job Vacancies
  • Covid-19
My country:

Search

Close

Breadcrumb

  • Cymraeg

Share this page:
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn

How cancer abducts your immune cells – and what we can do about it

Thomas Caspari, Reader in Cancer Biology writing in The Conversation. Read the fully illustrated original article.

Cancer cells play it dirty to get what they want. They are survival artists with a strong criminal streak. They surround themselves with a protective shield of extra-cellular material and then secure supply lines by attracting new blood vessels.

To achieve both of these aims, they set immune cells a honey trap by releasing attractants in the form of messenger molecules which lure immune cells to growing tumours. At the cancer site, the abducted immune cells release growth hormones to guide new blood vessels to the tumour and help build a protective shield.

Since immune cells are hard to come by, cancer cells benefit from sites of chronic inflammation or larger wounds in their close vicinity as both attract them. This explains why up to 20% of cancers are linked to chronic inflammation. Two associations include chronic inflammation of the liver or the bacterial infection of the stomach by Heliobacter pylori. How cancer cells pull off this trick is, however, largely unknown.

A social network

A fascinating insight into the intricate social network of cancer cells has just been published in The EMBO Journal. Two British research teams based in Bristol and Edinburgh, and one Danish team based in Aarhus, report that pre-cancerous cells redirect immune cells from nearby wounds to help them grow. Cancer cells mimic the signals, which are normally released at sites of tissue damage, to pinch neutrophils from inflamed wounds. Neutrophils are the most abundant (40% to 75%) type of immune cells and the first-responders at sites of tissue damage.

Nicole Antonio, Marie Bønnelykke-Behrndtz and Laura Ward took advantage of the translucent stage of young zebrafish (a model organism in animal research) to capture videos of moving neutrophiles. To initiate this movement they induced clones of cancerous cells to grow in the zebrafish and then inflicted laser wounds adjacent to them. In the absence of cancer cells, the rapidly recruited neutrophils remained for up to four hours at the damaged site. However in the presence of cancer cells, they became distracted from the wound and visited the nearby clones.

<

The team also provided evidence for a direct interaction between the abducted neutrophils and the malignant cells. During their “chat”, which lasted up to 90 minutes, the immune cells released a chemical known as prostaglandin E2 to stimulate growth of the nearby cancer colonies.

What of human risk

Their ground-breaking work raises, of course, the important question of whether human cancer cells pull off the same dirty trick.

It has already been established that the ulceration of melanoma, the rarest but most deadliest form of skin cancer, is a bad prognostic indicator. So the teams then analysed human melanoma samples taken from patients with different degrees of ulceration. They found a 15-fold increase in neutrophils from samples taken from non-inflamed melanomas to moderately ulcerated lesions, and a 100-fold increase from non-inflamed to excessively ulcerated lesions.

This shows that some human cancer cells share the ability to abduct and misuse immune cells to their advantage. It also poses the question of whether cancer surgery could enable malignant cells to survive when wounds become inflamed. A recent analysis of breast cancer operations indeed suggested that the use of anti-inflammatory drugs such as ketorolac given to patients before and after surgery leads to a lower recurrence of their breast tumours. Their exciting findings may also explain why aspirin, which blocks the production of prostaglandin E2 so efficiently, reduces the risk of developing several types of cancer.

The new observations could pave the way for new anti-cancer therapies if it were to be possible to turn the abducted neutrophils into a trojan horse which would kill pre-malignant cells. The high impact of their work illustrates also the power of international collaborations which are much more powerful than the sum of of individual contribution in science and cancer research.

The Conversation

Publication date: 1 July 2015

Home

  • News
    • Latest News
    • News Archive
    • Events
Home

Follow Us

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn

Bangor University

Bangor, Gwynedd, LL57 2DG, UK

+44 (0)1248 351151

Contact Us

Visit Us

Maps & Directions

Policy

  • Legal Compliance
  • Modern Slavery Act 2015 Statement
  • Accessibility Statement
  • Privacy and Cookies
  • Welsh Language Policy
Map

Bangor University is a Registered Charity: No. 1141565

© 2020 Bangor University