Washington University in St. Louis (WU)
Cancer patients experience intense stress related to diagnosis, recurrence fears, and therapy duration. This stress is associated with higher metastasis risk and poorer survival, highlighting the need to understand stress-driven metastasis mechanisms for effective therapies. Our research has revealed that chronic stress exerts an influence on neutrophils, leading to alterations in lung microenvironments that favor the spread of breast cancer. Furthermore, stress-induced glucocorticoids elevate gut permeability, which in turn contributes to the progression of inflammatory bowel disease and colorectal cancer (CRC). Our current primary objective is to gain a deeper understanding of the stress-induced inflammatory response during gut microenvironment remodeling during CRC progression and how this response impacts the efficacy of CRC therapies.