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May 5, 2021 11:00am MIT biologists reported that the cell elimination process called cell extrusion could offer new insights into stopping cancer. (Vivek Dwivedi)
Cancer cells multiply out of control because they re able to escape a mechanism known as programed cell death. But scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and King’s College London have uncovered key functions of another pathway with a long evolutionary history that the body uses to dispose of those rogue cells.
During this process, called cell extrusion, cells are squeezed out of the lining of tissues. The team, led by Nobel laureate H. Robert Horvitz, Ph.D., found that the process is triggered when cells fail to replicate their DNA during cell division, according to a study published in Nature.
MIT biologists find cell extrusion, a process that helps organisms eliminated unneeded cells, is triggered when cells can’t replicate their DNA during cell division. In humans, extrusion may serve as a way for the body to eliminate cancerous or precancerous cells.