In May 2009, ULg GIGA-Cancer researchers under the supervision of Agnès Noël, co-director of the Tumour Biology and Development Laboratory, published an article in the Journal of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, focusing on the roles of a matrix metalloproteinase (MT4-MMP) in the formation of pulmonary metastases stemming from breast cancer. And on 2nd September, Agnès Noël and Françoise Bruyère were responsible for another article, on lymphangiogenesis, in The FASEB Journal. These studies are in perfect symbiosis with the vast European Microenvimet programme, co-ordinated by Agnès Noël, whose ultimate goal is to find the means to eradicate the formation of metastases by acting on the tumoral microenvironment.

The development of metastases, the major cause of death in cancer patients, bears witness to the aggressive nature of the primary tumour. In addition, the question of the “metastatic cascade” has attracted the attention of numerous research groups. One of the essential aspects of the problem certainly relates to the way in which the tumoral microenvironment favours the spreading of the cancerous cells which leave the primitive lesion, through the blood or lymph system, to spread through the body and form one or more secondary foci.

Under the aegis of the 7th European Union Framework Programme, the Microenvimet (1) network, whose work began in March 2008, includes nine European research centres – Belgium, Finland, Germany (2 laboratories), Italy, Spain, France, Denmark and Slovenia. Financed by the European Commission for the sum of EUR 2 999 689 for four years, its overall objective is to contribute to understanding and fighting metastases by modulating the tumoral microenvironment.

In order to succeed in its research programme, it is relying on the specific expertise of each of its nine members and on innovative technological platforms – genomic platform for the analysis of messenger RNA and micro-RNA, phage bank for the development of antibodies that block identified targets, computer-assisted image analysis platform, transgenic platform.

As the co-ordinator, Professor Agnès Noël, co-director of the Tumour Biology and Development Laboratory (TBDL) within the University of Liège’s GIGA-Cancer explains, a tumour is not only made up of tumoral cells, but also of cells from the host it has recruited for itself through molecular messages and which infiltrate it. Among other things, they can be endothelial cells required for the neoformation of blood vessels (angiogenesis) and lymph vessels (lymphangiogenesis), and fibroblasts, elements that enter into the constitution of the extracellular matrix, favourable to the migration of tumoral cells, and which, in addition, will produce growth factors and proangiogenic factors, or even inflammatory cells. “While some immune or inflammatory cells defend the host against the tumour, others will work to its advantage”, Agnès Noël points out. “Thus, some types of macrophages turn out to be antitumoral while others stimulate angiogenesis. A whole range of work to detect the sub-populations of cells that infiltrate the tumour has been underway for the past few years, but there’s still a long way to go.”

(1) Microenvimet for Understanding and fighting metastasis by modulating the tumour microenvironnement through interference with the protease network.