Melanie R. Rutkowski, PhD Research: a finding which could lead to ways to keep breast cancer from metastasizing.

“We show gut commensal dysbiosis, an unhealthy and inflammatory gut microbiome, systemically changes the mammary tissues of mice that do not have cancer. The tissue changes enhance infiltration of mast cells that, in the presence of a tumor, facilitate breast tumor metastasis,” said researcher Melanie R. Rutkowski, PhD, of UVA Cancer Center and the University of Virginia School of Medicine. “Mast cells recruited into the tissue environment during dysbiosis restructure the tissue architecture in such a way that tumor cells metastasize to other organs.” [more]