Congratulations to Dr. Amal Elhaw, a recent graduate from the Hempel lab, on her new publication “RHOV is a Detachment-Responsive Rho GTPase Necessary for Ovarian Cancer Peritoneal Metastasis” published in Cancer Research (AACR Journals).

Metastasis is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths, and this is especially true in ovarian cancer, where most patients experience metastatic disease within the peritoneal cavity. For her thesis project, Amal set out to answer the question: what happens to tumor cells in the first minutes to hours after they detach from the primary tumor? 

Using an unbiased screen of detached ovarian cancer cells, Amal identified that the atypical and understudied Rho GTPase RHOV is strongly and rapidly induced within minutes of cell detachment. Genetic depletion of RHOV abolished the metastatic capacity of ovarian cancer cells in preclinical models, both in vitro and in vivo. Mechanistically, RHOV is required for actin cytoskeleton polymerization, a process critical for maintaining cell shape, pro-metastatic signaling, and adaptations to cellular survival in detached conditions. Altogether, this work identified RHOV as a novel detachment-responsive Rho GTPase necessary for ovarian cancer metastasis. Importantly, this research demonstrates that select transcriptional changes within the first hours after a cancer cell detaches are key to cancer cell reprogramming for successful metastatic spread.

#CancerResearch #OvarianCancer