Brain Cancer Self-Organizes into Streams, Swirls, and Spheres
Monday, December 14, 2015 - 09:33
in Health & Medicine
Brain cancer is not cellular anarchy, says Pedro Lowenstein and colleagues at the University of Michigan and University of Arizona, but highly organized--self-organized. At ASCB 2015, the researchers report that glioma cells build tumors by self-organizing into streams,10-20 cells wide, that obey a mathematically predicted pattern for autonomous agents flowing together. These streams drag along slower gliomas, may block entry of immune cells, and swirl around a central axis containing glioma stem cells that feed the tumor's growth.