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Although we understand various aspects of prostate cancer biology, few reliable risk factors are known. This Opinion article rationalizes why exposures early in life may be key for prostate cancer risk, summarizes our current limited understanding of early-life exposures and provides visions for the future.
Jeffrey Wrana and colleagues find that exosomes from cancer-associated fibroblasts activate WNT–planar cell polarity signalling in recipient breast tumour cells, which promotes motility and metastasis.
This paper finds that secreted chromatin fragments from leukaemia cells activate DNA damage responses in recipient stromal cells, which leads to their death.
Karen Vousden and colleagues have found that cancer cells that have lost the expression of the tumour suppressor p53 are unable to adapt in conditions of serine starvation.
Three recently published papers have strived to address more precisely the inflammatory pathways that contribute to the initiation and development of colorectal cancer.
p63 is expressed as various isoforms that seem to have opposing roles in cancer, with some being tumour suppressive and others being oncogenic. This Opinion article discusses the functions of the p63 isoforms and their interplay with other members of the p53 family.
Epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) is essential for driving plasticity during development, but can also occur in tumour cells during cancer progression. This Review discusses the layers of regulation (including the transcriptional and translational machinery, non-coding RNAs, alternative splicing and protein stability) that control the process and plasticity of EMT.
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is mainly associated with chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) and/or hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections. This Review outlines pathogenic mechanisms that seem to be common to both HBV and HCV, in the hope that this might suggest innovative approaches for the prevention and treatment of HCC.
Susan Clark and colleagues have found evidence in cancer cells that epigenetic changes can occur over long stretches of chromatin, leading to increased gene expression.
The tumour suppressor neurofibromatosis type 2 (NF2) restricts ezrin localization to establish cortical asymmetry and correctly position centrosomes and spindles during cell division in polarized epithelial cells.
LIM-domain-only (LMO) proteins are a subset of the LIM-domain protein family and function primarily as transcriptional regulators. They are associated with various cancers, including T cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (T-ALL) that resulted from unintended activation ofLMO2by insertional mutagenesis in human gene therapy trials. This Review discusses the roles and potential mechanisms of LMO proteins in cancer and the potential for therapeutic targeting.
The reactivation of wild-type p53 could potentially improve the treatment of many cancer patients. One strategy to achieve this is to target the p53 regulators MDM2 and MDMX. This Review discusses our understanding of how these proteins regulate p53 and the progress that has been made in targeting them.