Research led by Queen Mary University of London, King’s College London and the Francis Crick Institute has identified a protein that makes melanoma more aggressive by giving cancer cells the ability to change the shape of their nucleus–a characteristic which allows the cells to migrate and spread around the body.

The study, published in Nature Cell Biology, modeled the behaviour of aggressive melanoma cells that are able to change the shape of their nucleus to overcome the physical constraints that cancer cells encounter when they migrate through tissues. The study found that these aggressive melanoma cells harboured high levels of a protein called LAP1 and that increased levels of this protein were linked to poor prognosis in melanoma patients.

Read the full story from Queen Mary University of London by clicking here.