PNAS: Soft Weapon - How Tissue Mobility Affects the Development of Brain Tumors

Recently, researchers have provided a simple and interesting explanation for GBM's immersion behavior by observing tumor fluidityThey used fluidity to quantify the viscous performance of biological tissue measured by magnetic resonance elastic imaging (MRE) in the bodyThe results showed that the abnormality of nerve tumors decreased with the increase of water contentThe findings were published in the journal PNAShttps://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1913511116biological tissue has mechanical properties, and its solid or fluid behavior affects the spread of malignant tumorsIt is well known that solid tumors tend to have a high mechanical strength, allowing them to actively invade and spread to healthy tissues around them, but it is unknown how softer tumors grow in harder environments, such as the brainto understand the "accidental behavior" of this tissue mobility, the researchers used MRE to study three types of simulation materials, agaric, heparin, and tofu, which bind to water in different waysAgaric sugar and heparin are hydrated polysaccharides, while tofu is made up of soy protein, which is aggregated mainly through hydrophobic interactionsThe mechanical fluidity of these three materials changes differently after dilution, thus providing a reference for the quantitative explanation of the fluidity of neuromas in the bodyMRE mixed with different amounts of water from agaric sugar, heparin and tofu(A) Due to different water content caused by different flow state differences, the composite shear module of the amplitude (jG s j) and the composite shear die of the phase angle (s) graph; (B) the size of the three simulated materials on the dry solid part of the shear modulus (jG s j) and phase angle (s) changesMRE in the body of a brain tumor(A) Two representative cases in GBM and MEN (B) Quantitative analysis of the correlation between tumor fluidity and the relative amount of free water in the tumor (jS-j)the abnormal behavior of the fluidity in brain tumors (higher fluidity at lower moisture content) was similar to the observations in tofuInvasive GBM has a higher water content, but at the same time behaves like solids; This suggests that fluidity plays an important role in the invasive and leaching potential of tumorsthe study used simulated tissue models to find abnormal fluidity in nerve tumors, which allowed GBM to penetrate surrounding tissue at a physical level Therefore, mobility may become an important target of cancer research in the future, and open up new prospects for cancer diagnosis and treatment References: smh.com.au