Anoikis

The term anoikis (Greek: ἀνοἰκις, " homeless " ) refers to a programmed cell death of human or animal cells that have lost cell-matrix contact, similar to apoptosis. It was first used by the researchers Fresh and Franchis in a scientific article in the Journal of Cell Biology 1994.

In general, cells are incorporated in the tissue and dependent on cell communication with their "neighbors". In cell culture technology, the " homelessness " of the cells is in some cases even desirable, since such cells could be maintained in the culture medium and, consequently, would better space - time yields of biomass; in the human body, however, in the worst case this may lead to metastatic cancer. In this case, the neurotrophic tyrosine kinase receptor ( TrkB ) is attributed to that it subjects the anoikis. In the nervous system it plays an important role in promoting differentiation and proliferation together with the " Brain- Derived Neurotrophic Factor" ( brain - derived neurotrophic factor, BDNF). Overexpression of TrkB may thus lead to metastatic tumor cells. The inhibition of neurotrophic tyrosine kinase receptor could be an approach for tumor treatment.