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A collaborative study, funded by the National Cancer Institute and published in the journal iScience, characterized the extracellular matrix (ECM) at the two primary sites of ovarian cancer metastasis. University of Illinois Cancer Center member Alexandra Naba, PhD, is a study corresponding author, along with Pamela Kreeger, PhD, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Alexandra Naba, PhD

The ECM is a meshwork of proteins that provides biochemical and mechanical signals to cells and has been shown to drive the spread of several cancer types to distant sites. Two of the most common metastatic sites in high-grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSOC) are the omentum and mesentery, which are tissues in the abdomen that connect organs and hold them in place. However, while nearly 80% of HGSOC patients present with metastases to the omentum, only 30% of patients will present mesenteric metastases. The underlying reasons why ovarian cancer spreads preferentially to the omentum are unknown. In this study, Naba and team defined the architectural features and composition of the ECM of the omentum and mesentery to determine whether differences in the ECM could contribute to ovarian cancer metastatic tropism.

Click this link to read the full study.

Naba is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). She studies the role of the ECM in development, health and disease, mainly concentrating on cancer. She seeks to understand how the ECM contributes to disease and looks to develop new diagnostic and therapeutic strategies. She is also the founder of the Matrisome Project, a free online resource that helps scientists study the ECM by sharing protocols, tools and datasets.

Other study authors are at UIC and UW-Madison.