Fig. 6
From: Linking unfolded protein response to ovarian cancer cell fusion
Following the experimental procedure we used to obtain SKOV-M (a), we hypothesized that some cancer cells exposed to ER stress such as during chemotherapy treatment, fuse to form PGCCs. These polyploid cells are in dormancy and are consequently, unaffected by drugs targeting dividing cells. After genetic material mixing, these cells are able to proliferate and acquire new properties such as invasiveness and possibly drug resistance, associated with malignancy (b)