DC - Teses de Doutoramento
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Browsing DC - Teses de Doutoramento by Author "Dias, Liliana Mendonça da Silva"
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- The role of endothelial Dll4 in cancer metastasisPublication . Dias, Liliana Mendonça da Silva; Duarte, António Freitas; Trindade, Alexandre NetoThe metastatic spread of cancer is still the major barrier to the treatment of this disease. Cancer-mortality is mainly due to recurrence and metastasis. Although much has been done in the field of cancer treatment, prevention and approach to metastases are still areas not fully explored. Over and under-expression of Dll4/Notch signaling has been demonstrated to impair tumor growth through opposing patterns of vascular modulation in different mouse tumor models and human cancer xenografts. Recent evidence implicates Dll4/Notch pathway in the metastasis mechanism, but less is known about the specific role of endothelial Dll4. For this reason, we proposed to investigate how endothelial Dll4 expression interferes with the metastatic process. To address it we used a spontaneous metastasis mouse model based on Lewis Lung Carcinoma (LLC) subcutaneous transplants in endothelial-specific Dll4 lossof- function (eDll4cKO) and endothelial-specific Dll4 over-expression (D4OE) mice. Results demonstrated that eDll4cKO is responsible for the vascular function regression that leads to tumor growth reduction. Early steps of epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and cancer stem cell selection were also inhibited by eDll4cKO, leading to a substantial reduction of circulating tumor cells and reduction in the number and burden of macrometastases. Intravasation and extravasation were also compromised by eDll4cKO, possibly due to blockade of the metastatic niche. In the case of the D4OE mice we observed that tumor growth reduction was achieved by vessel proliferation restriction along with an improved vascular maturation, which allowed a more efficient delivery of chemotherapy. This last effect of vessel normalization seemed to prevent metastasis formation even though EMT markers were increased. In conclusion, despite the opposite vascular architecture phenotypes of eDll4cKO and D4OE, both lead to a reduction in metastasis. This is in line with the concept of Dll4 dosage observed in the wound-healing context and represents a promising therapeutic approach in metastasis prevention/ treatment.