Senescent thyroid tumor cells promote their migration by inducing the polarization of M2-like macrophages

An in-depth understanding of the mechanism of thyroid cancer progression will help identify patients with thyroid cancer with a high risk of recurrence and metastasis. Although studies have pointed out that the senescence of thyroid tumor cells may stimulate TAMs and cause a series of changes. However, the role of TAMs in aging thyroid cancer cells is still unknown. The aim of this study was to investigate the function of TAMs in aging thyroid cancer cells.

We conducted in vitro model studies based on the K1 cell line to induce tumor cell senescence and study its effect on the differentiation of macrophages, flow cytometry was used to confirm polarization of macrophages, transwell assay was used to confirm changes of invasion and migration of tumor cells.

Our data indicate that aging thyroid tumor cell lines trigger the polarization of M2-like macrophages, accompanied by increased expression of CCL17, CCL18, IL-18, and TGFβ1. This event is caused by the activation of the NFκB pathway upregulation of CXCL2 and CXCL3 is related. Further studies have shown that differentiated M2-like macrophages promote tumor cell migration (but have no effect on cell proliferation).

Our study indicating that the interaction between tumor and TAMs also occurs in the advanced stages of thyroid tumors and will lead to faster tumors progress.