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Jeffrey Wrana and colleagues find that exosomes from cancer-associated fibroblasts activate WNT–planar cell polarity signalling in recipient breast tumour cells, which promotes motility and metastasis.
The tumour suppressor neurofibromatosis type 2 (NF2) restricts ezrin localization to establish cortical asymmetry and correctly position centrosomes and spindles during cell division in polarized epithelial cells.
Susan Clark and colleagues have found evidence in cancer cells that epigenetic changes can occur over long stretches of chromatin, leading to increased gene expression.
This paper finds that secreted chromatin fragments from leukaemia cells activate DNA damage responses in recipient stromal cells, which leads to their death.
Karen Vousden and colleagues have found that cancer cells that have lost the expression of the tumour suppressor p53 are unable to adapt in conditions of serine starvation.
Joan Massagué and colleagues have found that epigenetic changes contribute to metastasis in clear-cell renal-cell carcinomas in which the tumour suppressor gene von Hippel–Lindau (VHL) is inactivated.
The reactivation of wild-type p53 could potentially improve the treatment of many cancer patients. One strategy to achieve this is to target the p53 regulators MDM2 and MDMX. This Review discusses our understanding of how these proteins regulate p53 and the progress that has been made in targeting them.
Epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) is essential for driving plasticity during development, but can also occur in tumour cells during cancer progression. This Review discusses the layers of regulation (including the transcriptional and translational machinery, non-coding RNAs, alternative splicing and protein stability) that control the process and plasticity of EMT.
LIM-domain-only (LMO) proteins are a subset of the LIM-domain protein family and function primarily as transcriptional regulators. They are associated with various cancers, including T cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (T-ALL) that resulted from unintended activation ofLMO2by insertional mutagenesis in human gene therapy trials. This Review discusses the roles and potential mechanisms of LMO proteins in cancer and the potential for therapeutic targeting.
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is mainly associated with chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) and/or hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections. This Review outlines pathogenic mechanisms that seem to be common to both HBV and HCV, in the hope that this might suggest innovative approaches for the prevention and treatment of HCC.
p63 is expressed as various isoforms that seem to have opposing roles in cancer, with some being tumour suppressive and others being oncogenic. This Opinion article discusses the functions of the p63 isoforms and their interplay with other members of the p53 family.