Host – Tumor Interactions during Cancer Therapy  – Dr. Yuval Shaked’s Lab @Technion

Reporter: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

Yuval Shaked, PhD

Figure Legend:

Anti-cancer therapy affects both the host and the tumor. Host cells or factors home to the treated tumor microenvironment and promote tumor growth and even spread of metastasis. Blocking such therapy-induced tumor effects can improve treatment outcome.

Understanding host – tumor interactions during cancer therapy

Personalized medicine holds promise of better cures with fewer side effects for many diseases. Individualized cancer therapy is sometimes utilized after multiple attempts of standard therapies and is based on several considerations, such as tumor type, acquired resistance to a specific therapy, previous treatment protocols, and other tumor-related factors. We have recently demonstrated that many cancer therapies can induce pro-tumorigenic or metastatic effects that derive not only from the tumor cells themselves, but also from host cells within the tumor microenvironment. The focus of research in my laboratory is to identify, characterize, and seek ways to block such pro-tumorigenic host effects observed after anti-cancer therapy, and thus potentially improve the outcome of current cancer therapies. Our findings may foster a paradigm shift in cancer therapy by minimizing the gap between preclinical findings and the clinical setting, laying the foundation for development of entirely new strategies for improving cancer therapy.

Representative publications

Benayoun L, Gingis-Velitski S, Voloshin T, Segal E, Segev R, Munster M, Bril R, Satchi-Fainaro R, Scherer SJ, Shaked Y. 2012. Tumor initiating cells of various tumor types exhibit differential angiogenic properties and react differently to antiangiogenic drugs. Stem Cells 30, 1831-41.

Gingis-Velitski S, Loven D, Benayoun L, Munster M, Bril R, Voloshin T, Alishekevitz D, Bertolini F, Shaked Y. 2011. Host response to short-term, single-agent chemotherapy induces matrix metalloproteinase-9 expression and accelerates metastasis in mice. Cancer Research 71, 6986-96.

Voloshin T, Gingis-Veltski S, Milsom C, Man S, Munster M, Kerbel RS, Shaked Y. 2011. G-CSF supplementation with chemotherapy can promote revascularization and subsequent tumor regrowth: prevention by a CXCR4 antagonist. Blood 118, 3426-35.