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Breast cancer is every woman's nightmare, and with the number of lives that it claims every year, the disease is one of the scariest for all the wrong reasons. Numerous studies have been conducted by researchers around the world in order to better understand the origin and spread of the disease, and a recent study offers us a chance to get an even closer look at the deadly disease.

The study suggests that breast cancer cells puncture holes into neighboring tissues and crawl though the spaces they create to spread around the body.

The study, by scientists at Cancer Research UK's Beatson Institute in Glasgow, reveals that there are high levels of a protein called N-WASP in breast cancer cells, which help form branches with sharp points on the cell surface by rearranging the cell's internal 'skeleton', made of a protein called actin, Medical Xpress reports.

Actin is the key to structural support, movement and shape changes in all cells, and hence is a significant part of the cell composition.

The branches with sharp points - called pseudopodia - can grab onto and poke holes into the extracellular matrix, the supporting tissue in-between cells, the report said.

Through the current study, the research team has shown how enzymes attach to the protrusions and dig into the extracellular matrix, creating larger spaces.

It is through a combination of pushing and pulling through which cancer cells invade their surrounding environment into the newly created spaces. This movement has been captured for the first time on a 3-D video by researchers who also show that removing N-WASP from cells resulted in much blunter protrusions, to which fewer enzymes became attached. This finding could be helpful in preventing the spread of the disease to other parts of the body.

"Our exciting results reveal a completely new process by which cells can break away from a tumour to invade surrounding spaces and spread around the body. We found that cells assemble specialised structures, with the ability to hold onto the surrounding tissue matrix and dig tunnels into it, which they can then crawl through," lead author, Dr Laura Machesky, at Cancer Research UK's Beatson Institute in Glasgow, said.

"Our research suggests that N-WASP is a promising target for the development of drugs to combat cancer spread. We were particularly intrigued because blocking N-WASP activity didn't affect healthy cells, so we think that N-WASP could be specifically targeted to prevent cancer spread."

"This important research reveals fresh understanding of how cancer spreads, which will help scientists to translate discoveries into effective treatments to beat cancer," Dr Julie Sharp, Cancer Research UK's senior science information manager said.

"Most cancer deaths are caused when cancer cells travel to new sites within the body and grow as secondary tumors so there's an urgent need to find a way to stop this happening. We're funding groundbreaking lab research into how cancer cells move around the body as well as important clinical trials which aim to combat the advanced disease. Finding the best ways to tackle cancer spread will save thousands more lives every year," Sharp added.

The research was published in the Journal of Cell Biology.