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  • The discovery and approval of direct KRAS inhibitors for clinical use showed that mutant KRAS is not, as previously thought, an ‘undruggable’ oncoprotein. But therapeutic success is limited by the rapid onset of resistance. Two studies now show that YAP and TAZ represent an actionable target for tackling adaptive resistance to KRAS inhibitors.

    • Alessia Mira
    • Chiara Ambrogio
    News & Views
  • Successful immune-mediated tumor control in pancreatic cancer is severely hampered by its dense desmoplastic stroma. New work shows that EZH2 inhibition relieves the suppressive effect of tumor stroma on pro-inflammatory chemokine expression after therapy-induced senescence, boosting NK and T cell recruitment and immunological tumor control.

    • Helene Damhofer
    • Kristian Helin
    News & Views
  • Given the increasing use of immune-checkpoint inhibitors for treating cancer, immune-related adverse events — and markers to prevent and diagnose these — are coming into focus. A systematic analysis investigates genetic, molecular, cellular and clinical risk factors of such adverse events in a large pan-cancer cohort treated with multiple agents.

    • Dietmar Rieder
    • Zlatko Trajanoski
    News & Views
  • Therapeutic products containing CD8+ and CD4+ T cells expressing CARs are effective at inducing remission in patients with cancer. How CD4+ CAR T cells contribute to the anti-tumor response has not been well established. A study uses syngeneic models and in vivo imaging to glean mechanistic insights into how CD4+ T cells target tumors.

    • M. Eric Kohler
    • Terry J. Fry
    News & Views
  • Antigen presentation is fundamental to anti-tumor immunity, but our understanding of the physiological and molecular inputs to the process in different contexts remains limited. Two new studies explore the contribution of cell-intrinsic proteolytic mechanisms and cell-extrinsic hot and cold tumor microenvironments in shaping the antigenic landscape in lung cancer.

    • Paul A. Stewart
    • Alex M. Jaeger
    News & Views
  • Glioblastomas have limited treatment options and dire prognoses. A study now shows that GAP43-mediated transfer of functional mitochondria from astrocytes to glioblastoma cells leads to metabolism, signaling and epigenome remodeling that favor tumor growth, thus highlighting GAP43 inhibition as a promising therapeutic strategy for glioblastoma.

    • Martina Semenzato
    • Luca Scorrano
    News & Views
  • As we age, organs undergo architectural and functional changes that deeply affect the fate of disseminated tumor cells (DTCs). A study now adds further complexity to this picture by revealing a role for the age-induced, fibrosis-associated factor PDGF-C in enabling ER+ DTCs to reawaken in aging lungs and thrive as overt metastasis.

    • Stanislav Drapela
    • Ana P. Gomes
    News & Views
  • The lack of tumor-specific surface antigens has limited the application of CAR T cells in solid tumors. A new AND-gated CAR T cell system repurposes proximal T cell signaling proteins to restrict activation to dual antigen encounter, mitigating on-target, off-tumor toxicity while preserving antitumor efficacy in preclinical models.

    • Philip Bucher
    • Judith Feucht
    News & Views
  • The response rates of pediatric cancers to immune checkpoint inhibitor therapies are disappointingly low, particularly when compared to the remarkable impact of these drugs in many adult cancers. A new study leverages clinical trial data to identify biomarkers that might improve patient selection in future clinical trials.

    • Paul J. Neeson
    • Paul G. Ekert
    News & Views
  • Clinical utility of T cell engagers (TCEs) in cancer immunotherapy for solid tumors is hampered by on-target off-tumor activity and dose-limiting adverse events. A study now proposes a solution to tackle these challenges through the design and preclinical characterization of extended half-life TCEs that are conditionally activated in the tumor microenvironment.

    • Aliyah B. Silver
    • Jeremy Wang
    • Jamie B. Spangler
    News & Views
  • Although targeting cancer cells on the basis of tissue-specific expression of key factors is an important strategy in precision oncology, few such therapies exist. Chemical screening now identifies YC-1 as a tissue-specific anti-cancer compound that is activated in the liver by the sulfotransferase enzyme SULT1A1.

    • Zixi Wang
    • Hao Zhu
    News & Views
  • Transactivation hubs and related biomolecular condensates are emerging as relevant molecular players in cancer biology. A new study now links PD-L1 upregulation on the cancer cell surface and IRF1–KAT8 transactivation hubs at PD-L1 loci. Therapeutic targeting of these hubs holds potential to unleash antitumor immunity.

    • Kelsey P. Kubelick
    • Felipe Garcia Quiroz
    News & Views
  • Patients with blood cancer have fewer antibodies after SARS-CoV-2 vaccination — but recent work shows that these antibodies seem to bind to viral spike protein more strongly than those in matched controls. In addition, another study finds that convalescent or vaccinee plasma might improve COVID-19 outcomes in those with blood cancer.

    • Ratna Wijaya
    • Sean H. Lim
    News & Views
  • Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a heterogeneous disease with poor prognosis and treatment options. A new study reveals a unique inflammatory signature in pediatric and adult AML malignant cells that is associated with the infiltration of atypical B cells in the bone marrow microenvironment, which adds an independent layer of prognostic information.

    • Asaf D. Yanir
    • Shai Izraeli
    News & Views
  • Developing approaches to identify patients who may benefit from specific treatments is an important area of research. A study now defines an HDAC6 score to predict the response of patients with breast cancer to the HDAC6 inhibitor ricolinostat and characterizes its anti-tumor effects with preclinical mechanistic work and a phase 1b clinical trial.

    • Joschka Hey
    • Maria Llamazares Prada
    • Christoph Plass
    News & Views
  • Overall survival for children with rare, relapsed, metastatic and/or refractory cancers has remained unacceptably low over the past four decades. A new precision oncology study introduces an integrative germline and somatic sequencing approach that could breach this impasse to advance cures for children with cancer.

    • Ammar S. Naqvi
    • Jo Lynne Rokita
    News & Views
  • Glioblastoma (GBM) brain tumor cells exhibit pronounced phenotypic plasticity, but exactly how this enables GBMs to inevitably resist standard treatment is not known. A new study uses multilevel molecular profiling of pre- and post-treatment human GBMs to shed light on treatment response with single-cell and spatial resolution.

    • Lucy F. Stead
    News & Views
  • Pancreatic ductal cells transport bicarbonate from blood to pancreatic juice. A study shows that pancreatic cancer retains SLC4A4-mediated bicarbonate import to fuel cancer growth via enhanced glycolysis and establish a pro-tumorigenic immune microenvironment. Targeting SLC4A4 mitigates acidosis and can be combined with checkpoint blockade.

    • Li Qiang
    • Stephanie K. Dougan
    News & Views
  • Persistent senescent cancer cells have tumor-promoting potential, making their selective elimination a prime therapeutic objective. The death receptor inhibitor cFLIP has now been shown to counter the susceptibility of senescent cells to DR5-mediated extrinsic apoptosis, which can be therapeutically exploited.

    • Dorothy N. Y. Fan
    • Clemens A. Schmitt
    News & Views
  • Combinations of immune-checkpoint blockade and radiotherapy to modulate antitumor immunity have mainly focused on manipulating T cells. A study now shows that combining radiotherapy with activation of macrophages yields potent, abscopal effects in mouse tumor models that may be ready for translation into early clinical trials.

    • Christopher A. Barker
    • Nadeem Riaz
    News & Views