Local experts find the role of platelets in cancer metastasis

An important factor leading to the death of cancer patients is metastasis, or the development of secondary cancers at a distance from the original cancer. The long-term survival rates of osteosarcoma patients is unsatisfactory in the main due to the high incidence of the cancer spreading to the patient's lungs.

Experts from the Shanghai 6th People's Hospital led a study that discloses the function of platelets in cancer spreading, providing new ideas for the prevention and intervention of cancer spread.

The discovery was published by world-leading journal Cell Reports.

Platelets play various roles in the formation and spread of cancer and have been reported to both promote and inhibit cancer cell proliferation. Previous research has shown that cancer cells evade immunity by stealing mitochondria from immune cells, and platelets transfer these mitochondria to mesenchymal stem cells, where they remodel the metabolic pathway. However, the mechanism of mitochondrial transport and the metabolites related to this process is unknown, but it is recognized as being very important to the prevention of cancer metastases.

Dr Zhang Changqing from the hospital teamed up with experts from Zhejiang University to carry out the research, detecting that osteosarcoma cells acquired healthy mitochondria from platelets, which subsequently weakened their proliferation ability but enhanced their tendency to metastasize by altering their energy metabolism. Transferred platelet mitochondria decreased oxidative stress in cancer cells, which contributed to tumor metastases in the lung.

"This research explains how platelets promote the spread to the lungs of osteosarcoma. Impairing mitochondrial respiration in platelets can alleviate the pro-metastatic effect of platelets and inhibited the growth of osteosarcoma, which offers light on a promising therapeutic approach to osteosarcoma," Zhang said.