Identification of tumor-secreted exosomal miRNAs involved in pre-metastatic niche formation and metastatic progression by MED Professor David Wai Chan published in Molecular Cancer
The collaborative research led by Professor David Wai Chan, School of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and his team from The University of Hong Kong, and other collaborators from The Chinese University of Hong Kong and Shanghai Jiao Tong University, was published their paper entitled “Tumor-secreted exosomal miR-141 activates tumor-stroma interactions and controls premetastatic niche formation in ovarian cancer metastasis”, in the January 9th, 2023 issue of Molecular Cancer. Dr. Yulan Mo (1st author) and Dr. Mingo MH Yung (co-corresponding author) were Prof. David Wai Chan’s Ph.D. student and postdoctoral fellow, respectively.

According to the ‘seed and soil’ hypothesis proposed by Stephen Paget, the organ-specific metastatic patterns of human cancers are determined not only by the tumor cells (seed) but also by the premetastatic niche (soil). Investigation into how disseminated tumor cells choose specific distal sites for metastatic homing has become a hot topic. In this study, they report that the tumor-derived exosomal miR-141 possesses the capacity for cell-to-cell communication and reprograms stromal fibroblasts to be cancer-associated fibroblast (CAF) phenotype. These findings are strongly supported by the comprehensive mechanistic and functional results and are significantly evidenced by clinical data. Importantly, this study highlights the signaling cascade YAP1/GROɑ/CXCRs mediated by the exosomal miR-141 as a positive loop for the crosstalk in tumor-stromal interactions and the putative therapeutic target in preventing metastatic colonization.