Bone Abstracts

Tumour stromal macrophages differentiate into tumour associated macrophages (TAMs), with characteristics resembling the immunosuppressive M2 polarization instead of the pro-inflammatory M1. TAMs have a central role in promoting tumour vascularization, cancer cell dissemination and suppression of anti-cancer immune response. Cancer cell dissemination leads to metastasis formation which, e.g. in breast cancer often happens in bone marrow. We have studied the in vitro mo...

Nitrogen-containing bisphosphonates (N-BPs) are used to treat osteolytic bone metastases. N-BPs have been previously shown to enter macrophages via macropinocytosis, but the mechanisms how they are taken up by breast cancer cells are so far incompletely known. In breast cancer primary tumours N-BPs have been shown, by other researchers, to be bound to micro-calcifications present in the tumour stroma. In our study we have characterized how different N-BP formulations, free, ca...