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Breast cancer blocked by multiple natural lines of defence

Cancer-promoting mutations are common in healthy tissue but rarely lead to tumour formation. A study of the mouse mammary gland reveals three protective mechanisms that limit the ability of cells to give rise to cancer.
  1. Biancastella Cereser

    1. Biancastella Cereser is in the Department of Surgery and Cancer, Imperial College London, London W12 0NN, UK.

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In the past few years, a growing number of DNA-sequencing studies have highlighted the complexity of cancer development. The results have emphasized the need to study the genetic landscape of healthy tissues to understand how disease arises at the cellular level. Writing in Nature, Ciwinska et al.1 reveal protective mechanisms that occur in healthy mouse mammary gland to combat the growth of cells with cancer-promoting (oncogenic) mutations. Oncogenic mutations are surprisingly common in the mammary gland and in other healthy tissues2–4.

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Nature 633, 42-43 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-02658-1

References

  1. Ciwinska, M. et al. Nature 633, 198–206 (2024).

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  2. Martincorena, I. Genome Med. 11, 35 (2019).

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  3. Cereser, B. et al. Nature Commun. 14, 5136 (2023).

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Competing Interests

B.C. serves as editor for Oncogene, which is part of Nature’s publisher Springer Nature. The editorial role did not influence the views presented here.

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