Metastasis articles within Nature

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  • Letter |

    The subclonal composition of human prostate tumours and their metastases has been mapped by whole-genome sequencing, thus establishing the evolutionary trees behind the development and spread of these cancers; an important observation was that metastases could be re-seeded multiple times, and spread from one tumour to another was frequently seen.

    • Gunes Gundem
    • , Peter Van Loo
    •  & G. Steven Bova

  • Letter |

    Tumour cells respond to an effective, targeted drug treatment with BRAF, ALK or EGFR kinase inhibitors by inducing a complex network of secreted signals that promote tumour growth, dissemination and metastasis of drug-resistant cancer cell clones, and increase the survival of drug-sensitive tumour cells, potentially contributing to incomplete tumour regression.

    • Anna C. Obenauf
    • , Yilong Zou
    •  & Joan Massagué

  • Letter |

    Linear sequence elements within messenger RNAs are known to be targeted by regulatory factors such as microRNAs for degradation, a process that has been implicated in disease; now, non-linear regulatory structural elements within mRNAs are shown also to be targeted, with the resulting mRNA destabilization mediating breast cancer metastasis.

    • Hani Goodarzi
    • , Steven Zhang
    •  & Sohail F. Tavazoie

  • Outlook |

    Even as cancer therapies improve, basic questions about drug resistance, tumour spread and the role of normal tissue remain unanswered.

    • Katherine Bourzac

  • Outlook |

    The way cells physically interact with each other and their environment could help researchers understand the invasion and metastasis of solid tumours.

    • Erika Jonietz

  • Outlook |

    The system for clinical trials must be redesigned if there is to be a decline in breast cancer metastasis, argues Patricia S. Steeg.

    • Patricia S. Steeg

  • Outlook |

    If detected early, most cases of breast cancer seem to be curable. But the tumour's deadly offspring could be sleeping in the body.

    • Jocelyn Rice

  • Letter |

    In a mouse model of mammary carcinoma, loss of deleted in colorectal cancer (DCC) promotes metastasis formation, and in cell cultures derived from p53-deficient mouse mammary tumours DCC expression controls netrin-1-dependent cell survival, supporting the function of DCC as a context-dependent tumour suppressor that limits survival of disseminated tumour cells.

    • Paul Krimpenfort
    • , Ji-Ying Song
    •  & Anton Berns

  • News & Views |

    A genetic study of brain cancers in mice and humans reveals distinct mutations in primary tumours and their metastases, suggesting that the two disease 'compartments' may require different treatments.

    • Steven C. Clifford

  • News |

    A leading explanation for how disease migrates falls short on clinical evidence.

    • Heidi Ledford

  • Letter |

    Pancreatic cancer is highly aggressive, usually because of widespread metastasis. Here, next-generation DNA sequencing has been used to detect genomic rearrangements in 13 patients with pancreatic cancer and to explore clonal relationships among metastases. The results reveal not only considerable inter-patient heterogeneity, but also ongoing genomic instability and evolution during the development of metastases.

    • Peter J. Campbell
    • , Shinichi Yachida
    •  & P. Andrew Futreal

  • Letter |

    Here, whole-genome sequencing has been used to analyse primary pancreatic tumours and one or more metastases from the same patients. The findings show that tumours are composed of several geographically distinct subclones, and allow maps to be produced showing how metastatic cancer clones evolve within the primary tumour. Moreover, a quantitative analysis of the timing of the genetic evolution of pancreatic cancer has been performed.

    • Shinichi Yachida
    • , Siân Jones
    •  & Christine A. Iacobuzio-Donahue

  • Letter |

    The aberrant expression of microRNAs and of the enzymes that control their processing has been reported in tumours, but the mechanisms involved are not clear. It is now shown that TAp63, a member of the p53 family of tumour suppressors, suppresses tumorigeneis and metastasis by directly controlling the expression of Dicer (a microRNA-processing enzyme) and Dicer-regulated microRNAs.

    • Xiaohua Su
    • , Deepavali Chakravarti
    •  & Elsa R. Flores

  • Letter |

    Analogues of migrastatin — a natural product secreted by Streptomyces — are potent inhibitors of tumour cell migration and metastasis. Here, the underlying mechanism is elucidated: these migrastatin analogues target and inhibit the activity of the actin-bundling protein fascin. Hence proteins such as fascin might present new molecular targets for cancer treatments.

    • Lin Chen
    • , Shengyu Yang
    •  & Xin-Yun Huang

  • Letter |

    Large intervening non-coding RNAs (lincRNAs) are pervasively transcribed in the genome. Here it is shown that lincRNAs in the HOX genetic loci are dysregulated during breast cancer progression in human cells, and that expression levels of the lincRNA called HOTAIR can predict whether a tumour will metastasize. Moreover, enforced expression of HOTAIR can lead to altered patterns of binding of the PRC2 protein to the genome.

    • Rajnish A. Gupta
    • , Nilay Shah
    •  & Howard Y. Chang

  • Article |

    Massively parallel DNA sequencing allows entire genomes to be screened for genetic changes associated with tumour progression. Here, the genomes of four DNA samples from a 44-year-old African-American patient with basal-like breast cancer were analysed. The samples came from peripheral blood, the primary tumour, a brain metastasis and a xenograft derived from the primary tumour. The findings indicate that cells with a distinct subset of the primary tumour mutation might be selected during metastasis and xenografting.

    • Li Ding
    • , Matthew J. Ellis
    •  & Elaine R. Mardis

  • News & Views |

    Cancer cells that invade other parts of the body do so by accumulating genomic aberrations. Analysis of the genomic differences between primary and metastatic tumours should aid the understanding of this process.

    • Joe Gray

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