Soluble bone-derived osteopontin promotes migration and stem-like behavior of breast cancer cells.

Breast cancer is a leading cause of cancer death in women, with the majority of these deaths caused by metastasis to distant organs. The most common site of breast cancer metastasis is the bone, which has been shown to provide a rich microenvironment that supports the migration and growth of breast cancer cells. Additionally, growing evidence suggests that breast cancer cells that do successfully metastasize have a stem-like phenotype including high activity of aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) and/or a CD44+CD24- phenotype.

Epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition leads to disease-stage differences in circulating tumor cell detection and metastasis in pre-clinical models of prostate cancer.

Metastasis is the cause of most prostate cancer (PCa) deaths and has been associated with circulating tumor cells (CTCs). The presence of ≥5 CTCs/7.5mL of blood is a poor prognosis indicator in metastatic PCa when assessed by the CellSearch® system, the "gold standard" clinical platform.

Generation of Organ-conditioned Media and Applications for Studying Organ-specific Influences on Breast Cancer Metastatic Behavior.

Breast cancer preferentially metastasizes to the lymph node, bone, lung, brain and liver in breast cancer patients. Previous research efforts have focused on identifying factors inherent to breast cancer cells that are responsible for this observed metastatic pattern (termed organ tropism), however much less is known about factors present within specific organs that contribute to this process. This is in part because of a lack of in vitro model systems that accurately recapitulate the organ microenvironment.