Researchers have been able to coax human breast cancer cells to turn into fat cells in a new proof-of-concept study in mice.

　　在对老鼠进行的概念论证研究中，研究员可以诱骗人类乳腺癌细胞转变为脂肪细胞。

　　To achieve this feat, the team exploited a weird pathway that metastasising cancer cells have; their results are just a first step, but it's a truly promising approach.

　　为了取得这项功绩，团队利用转移性癌细胞的奇特通路。他们的结果只是第一步，但是确实是个很有前途的方法。

　　When you cut your finger, or when a foetus grows organs, the epithelium cells begin to look less like themselves, and more 'fluid' – changing into a type of stem cell called a mesenchyme and then reforming into whatever cells the body needs.

　　你切到手指的时候，胎儿长器官的时候，上皮细胞开始看起来不那么像他们自己了，更加像“液体”，变成一种叫做间质的干细胞，然后变成身体需要的任何一种细胞。

　　This process is called epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and it's been known for a while that cancer can use both this one and the opposite pathway called MET (mesenchymal‐to‐epithelial transition), to spread throughout the body and metastasise.

　　这个过程叫做上皮细胞-间充质转化(EMT)。大家已经知道了一段时间，癌细胞既可以用这种方式也可以用相反的叫做EMT(间充质-上皮细胞转化)的方式在体内扩散转移。

　　The researchers took mice implanted with an aggressive form of human breast cancer, and treated them with both a diabetic drug called rosiglitazone and a cancer treatment called trametinib.

　　研究员在小鼠体内植入一种攻击性的人乳腺癌细胞，用治疗糖尿病的药物罗格列酮和治疗癌症的药物曲美替尼治疗小鼠。

　　Thanks to these drugs, when cancer cells used one of the above-mentioned transition pathways, instead of spreading they changed from cancer into fat cells – a process called adipogenesis.

　　多亏了这些药物，当癌细胞用上述的其中一种转变方式，而不是扩散时，它们从癌细胞转变为了脂肪细胞。这种过程叫做脂肪形成。

　　"The models used in this study have allowed the evaluation of disseminating cancer cell adipogenesis in the immediate tumour surroundings," the team wrote in their paper, published in January 2019.

　　团队在2019年1月发表的论文中写道， “这项研究中使用的模式允许对直接肿瘤环境中扩散癌细胞的脂肪形成进行评估。”

　　"The results indicate that in a patient-relevant setting combined therapy with rosiglitazone and trametinib specifically targets cancer cells with increased plasticity and induces their adipogenesis."

　　“结果显示，在与病人相关的环境中，使用罗格列酮和曲美替尼的疗法特别针对具有可塑性的癌细胞，引导它们进行脂肪形成。”

　　Although not every cancer cell changed into a fat cell, the ones that underwent adipogenesis didn't change back.

　　虽然不是每个癌细胞都会转变为脂肪细胞，但已经发生了脂肪形成的细胞不会变回来。