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Giulia Gallerani: New Publication in Cell Death and Disease

Giulia Gallerani/LinkedIn

Apr 2, 2025, 18:23

Giulia Gallerani: New Publication in Cell Death and Disease

Giulia Gallerani, Junior Assistant Professor at Alma Mater Studiorum – University of Bologna, posted on LinkedIn about recent paper she and her colleagues co-authored:

“New Publication in Cell Death and Disease!

I’m very pleased to present our new study on circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and their interaction with the immune system. Tumor dissemination is a crucial step in cancer progression, yet the role of the immune system in supporting CTC survival and proliferation remains largely unknown.

In our study, we developed an in vitro co-culture system combining CTCs and immune cells from the same patient, improving the success rate in establishing long-term CTC-derived cell lines. This approach allowed us to characterize the interactions between cancer and immune cells, focusing on cytokines and extracellular vesicles(EVs).

Key findings

Four CRC-derived cell lines were successfully established from patients with metastatic gastroesophageal cancer, maintained in culture for over a year, and characterized at the genetic and molecular levels.
Identification of common chromosomal alterations, including MYC amplification(8q24.21) and CDKN2A/B deletion (9p21.3), impacting immune response regulation.
CTC-derived cell lines exhibited distinct transcriptomic profiles compared to primary tumors, with activation of E2F,G2M,and MYC pathways and downregulation of the interferon response.
In vivo zebrafish experiments revealed that the most invasive CTC cell lines shared a mutation in RAB14
CTC-derived EVs carried microRNAs targeting YAP, BRG1-AKT1, and TCF8-HDAC pathways, suggesting a crucial communication mechanism that enhances CTC survival and dissemination.

These findings reinforce the role of the immune system in supporting CTC proliferation through EV-mediated signaling and highlight how the genomic and transcriptomic alterations of CTCs may make them less visible to the immune system, facilitating their survival and spread to distant sites.

I hope this work paves the way for new insights into understanding and counteracting tumor dissemination!