Bone cancer articles from across Nature Portfolio

Proteomic, transcriptomic, and genomic analysis has shown osteosarcoma (OS) to be a complex and heterogenous disease but revealed little about its carcinogenesis or potential therapeutic targets. Here, the authors profile the RNA interactome, transcriptome and proteome of cells derived from OS patients, identifying a targetable vulnerability to translation inhibition.

Here, the authors develop a hybrid agent-based model to quantify the contributions of intrinsic cellular mechanisms and bone ecosystem factors to therapy resistance in multiple myeloma. They show that intrinsic mechanisms are essential for resistance, and that the bone microenvironment provides a protective niche that increases the likelihood.

The osteosarcoma genome has long been known to be complex, with few common features between tumours. However, a growing number of somatic genome studies, including a recent study by Behjati et al., have identified common themes in subsets of these cancers. The data suggest that subsets of somatic signatures could be therapeutically tractable targets.

The genetic drivers of osteosarcoma have been difficult to identify because of the genomic complexity consistently encountered in cancer cells at diagnosis. A new study uses Sleeping Beauty transposon mutagenesis to drive osteosarcomagenesis in the mouse and identify likely drivers of the disease in humans.