Prof. Neta Erez
Mortality from cancer is almost entirely due metastasis to distant organs. Advanced metastatic disease is currently incurable. Therefore, understanding the mechanisms that underlie metastasis is an urgent unmet medical need, and essential for the development of better treatments. The Erez lab research is focused on understanding the role of the tumor microenvironment in facilitating tumor progression and metastasis. Our goal is to understand the early stages of metastatic relapse. Specifically, we study brain metastasis from melanoma and breast cancer. Using mouse models of breast cancer and of melanoma, combined with imaging, molecular and genetic approaches, and human clinical data, we study cancer-related neuroinflammation and uncover the interactions of brain metastasizing cancer cells with astrocytes, microglia and recruited immune cells. Better understanding of these interactions will enable us to identify key molecular pathways in the communication between tumor cells and their microenvironment that can be targeted by novel therapeutics, to prevent tumor metastasis.
Brain Disorders Research
- Adler O*, Zait Y*, Cohen N, Blazquez R, Doron H, Monteran L, Scharff Y, Shami T, Mundhe D, Glehr G, Kanner AA, Horn S, Yahalom V, Haferkamp S, Hutchinson JA, Bleckmann A, Nahary L, Benhar I, Yust Katz S, Pukrop T and Erez N. Reciprocal interactions between innate immune cells and astrocytes facilitate neuroinflammation and brain metastasis via Lipocalin-2. Nature Cancer, February 16 2023. https://www.nature.com/articles/s43018-023-00519-w
- Monteran L, Ershaid N, Doron H, Zait Y, Scharff Y, Ben-Yosef S, Avivi C, Barshack I, Sonnenblick A and Erez N. Chemotherapy-induced complement signaling modulates immunosuppression and metastatic relapse in breast cancer. Nat Commun. 2022 Oct 2;13(1):5797. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-33598-x
- Doron H, Amer M, Ershaid N, Blazquez R, Shani O, Gener Lahav T, Cohen N, Adler O, Hakim Z, Pozzi S, Scomparin A, Cohen J, Yassin M, Monteran L, Grossman R, Tsarfaty G, Luxenburg C, Satchi-Fainaro R, Pukrop T and Erez N. Inflammatory Activation of Astrocytes Facilitates Melanoma Brain Tropism via the CXCL10-CXCR3 Signaling Axis. Cell Reports. 2019;28(7):1785-1798.e6 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211124719309301?via%3Dihub
- Hila Doron, Tobias Pukrop and Neta Erez. A Blazing Landscape: Neuroinflammation Shapes Brain Metastasis. Cancer Res. January 24 2019. https://aacrjournals.org/cancerres/article/79/3/423/639162/A-Blazing-Landscape-Neuroinflammation-Shapes-Brain
- Speah S and Erez N. A glitch in the matrix: organ-specific matrisomes in metastatic niches. Trends Cell Biol. 2021 Sep 1. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0962892421001628?via%3Dihub
