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Cancer

Whispering sweet somethings

Nature volume 453, pages 604–605 (2008)Cite this article

That genetic mutations contribute to cancer is undisputed. What now emerges is that a cancer cell's microenvironment has a much stronger hand in the course a cancer takes than previously thought.

The goal of personalized medicine is to tailor a treatment to a specific cellular target at the appropriate stage of a disease, thus 'defusing' the disease process. Cancer is an example of the way in which multifaceted approaches to attaining this goal are emerging. We have come to appreciate that a tumour is a collection of diverse cells — cells carrying cancer-causing mutations and the cells of its immediate microenvironment — that act in concert towards disease progression1,2. Three studies3,4,5 illustrate how these cells collude, and focus on the contribution of non-tumour cells.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Thea Tlsty is in the Department of Pathology, University of California, San Francisco, 513 Parnassus Avenue, San Francisco, California 94143-0511, USA. thea.tlsty@ucsf.edu,

    Thea Tlsty

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Tlsty, T. Whispering sweet somethings. Nature 453, 604–605 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/453604a

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