Breast Cancer Uses Growth Factors To Lure Stem Cells

Like a siren song, breast cancer secretes growth factors to attract stem cells then uses those cells -- which normally promote healing -- to help it survive, researchers have found. In the laboratory, the researchers have documented secretion of growth factors FGF2 and VEGF by breast cancer cells, seen these factors bind to receptors on stem cells then watched stem cells migrate toward the cancer. When they took the growth factors away, the deadly migration decreased.