< Back to previous page

Project

Understanding and tackling the spatio-temporal changes of the metastatic lymph node epicenter (MetaNiche)

Many cancer types disseminate through the lymphatic system, where lymph nodes (LN) are the first metastatic
relay before further spreading to distant organs. There is growing evidence that tumor-emanating signals
create a premetastatic niche in sentinel LN that facilitate metastatic cell dissemination. However, the
mechanistic underpinnings of how tumor cells induce a pre-metastatic niche in LNs and escape
immunosurveillance upon seeding in the LN are less understood. The scope of the EOS MetaNiche
consortium is to gain unprecedented insights into the complexity and spatio-temporal evolution of the different
LN compartments. The MetaNiche project will decipher tumor-emanating factors involved in the complex
tumor-LN crosstalk and identify means to transform the LN environment into a “hostile soil” for cancer cells to
prevent metastatic dissemination. The innovative goal of MetaNiche is to provide a first holistic view of the
spatial and temporal 4D map and detailed trajectory of the vascular, immune, and stromal changes in the LNs
from homeostasis to the metastatic state through state-of-the-art approaches (4D intravital imaging,
transcriptional, proteomic and metabolic profiling) using endogenous metastatic mouse tumor models and
human LN samples of cancer patients. The EOS MetaNiche consortium consists of 6 academic teams from
the Flemish, Walloon, and Brussels Capital Region, and a foreign expert who has pioneered the research on
the pre-metastatic niche.

Date:1 Jan 2022 →  Today
Keywords:lymph node metastases, pre-metastatic niche, blood and lymphatic vasculature, immune cells, TGFbeta activation, in vivo imaging
Disciplines:Cell signalling, Cancer biology