The Sympathetic Nervous System Induces a Metastatic Switch in Primary Breast Cancer

TLDR

Metastasis to distant tissues is the chief driver of breast‑cancer mortality, yet the systemic physiological dynamics that regulate this process remain poorly understood. The study investigates how neuroendocrine activation influences breast‑cancer progression. The authors tracked metastasis development in an orthotopic mouse model using in‑vivo bioluminescence imaging. Stress‑induced neuroendocrine activation markedly increased distant metastasis—by ~30‑fold—via β‑adrenergic signaling that recruited M2‑polarized macrophages and induced a prometastatic gene signature, and this effect was abrogated by β‑blockade or CSF‑1R inhibition, establishing sympathetic activation as a novel neural driver of breast‑cancer spread and a target for antimetastatic therapy.

Abstract

Metastasis to distant tissues is the chief driver of breast cancer-related mortality, but little is known about the systemic physiologic dynamics that regulate this process. To investigate the role of neuroendocrine activation in cancer progression, we used in vivo bioluminescence imaging to track the development of metastasis in an orthotopic mouse model of breast cancer. Stress-induced neuroendocrine activation had a negligible effect on growth of the primary tumor but induced a 30-fold increase in metastasis to distant tissues including the lymph nodes and lung. These effects were mediated by β-adrenergic signaling, which increased the infiltration of CD11b(+)F4/80(+) macrophages into primary tumor parenchyma and thereby induced a prometastatic gene expression signature accompanied by indications of M2 macrophage differentiation. Pharmacologic activation of β-adrenergic signaling induced similar effects, and treatment of stressed animals with the β-antagonist propranolol reversed the stress-induced macrophage infiltration and inhibited tumor spread to distant tissues. The effects of stress on distant metastasis were also inhibited by in vivo macrophage suppression using the CSF-1 receptor kinase inhibitor GW2580. These findings identify activation of the sympathetic nervous system as a novel neural regulator of breast cancer metastasis and suggest new strategies for antimetastatic therapies that target the β-adrenergic induction of prometastatic gene expression in primary breast cancers.