Delicate, threadlike protrusions used by cancer cells when they invade other tissues in the body could also help them escape control mechanisms supposed to eliminate them, a research group led by led by Bradley Davidson in the University of Arizona’s department of molecular and cellular biology reports in Nature Cell Biology. Studying embryos of the sea squirt Ciona intestinalis, the researchers discovered that even non-invasive cells make the delicate, highly transient structures known as invadopodia. The group found that future heart cells in the Ciona embryo use invadopodia to pick up chemical signals from their surroundings. These so-called growth factors provide the cells with clues as to where they are in the developing embryo and what type of cell they are supposed to turn into.
