Opinion

There is evidence that African-American women with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) have worse clinical outcomes than women of European descent with TNBC. However, it is unclear whether survival differences persist after adjusting for health disparities. Understanding the relative contributions of biology and disparities is crucial for improving the poor survival of African-American women with TNBC.

Cancer cachexia is a multifactorial syndrome that affects many cancer patients and that leads to substantial weight loss, primarily from loss of skeletal muscle and body fat. This Opinion article focuses on the molecular mechanisms underlying cancer cachexia, in hopes that a better understanding of these might lead to improved therapeutic approaches.

Brownet al. argue that epigenetic heterogeneity leads to therapeutic resistance, such that bivalently marked gene promoters result in epigenetically poised gene expression that can become fixed by exposure to therapy. What are the opportunities to target this proposed mechanism of therapeutic resistance?

'Integrative oncology', also known as complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), is being increasingly accepted in cancer care and research. This Opinion article aims to define what is meant by CAM in cancer and argues that the vast majority of these treatments are supported by little, if any, scientific evidence. Furthermore, it asks the questions: is there any harm in these treatments, and are there any potential benefits?

This Opinion article considers the current status of stem cell-based treatments for cancer, such as the optimization of technologies to manipulate and deploy stem cells to target cancerous cells. It addresses safety concerns and discusses how the most promising preclinical studies might be translated into the clinic.

In this Opinion article, Buchheitet al. describe the cellular changes that regulate cell viability when cells become detached from the ECM. In particular, they discuss how cancer cells take advantage of these specific processes and how better understanding them will be instrumental in designing therapeutic strategies that aim to eliminate ECM-detached metastatic cells.

Circulating tumour cells (CTCs) are the subject of many published papers, but the diversity of assays used for their analysis can be daunting. This Opinion article discusses issues regarding the detection and characterization of CTCs, and poses the major outstanding questions in this field.

This Opinion article highlights the similarities in the pathways involved in induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) generation and tumorigenesis. The authors hope that collaboration between researchers working with iPSCs and cancer cells will facilitate progress towards safe and effective regenerative medicine, as well as more effective targeted cancer therapy.

Oncolytic viruses were originally designed as tumour-lysing therapeutics. However, they also initiate systemic antitumour immune responses. Can these viruses be exploited to enhance antitumour immune responses, and how might they be combined with other cancer immunotherapies?

Normal epithelia can use apical cell extrusion to remove cells without disrupting their barrier function. However, oncogenic mutations can shift extrusion basally, and this Opinion article asks whether this might promote cell invasion and metastasis.

The poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) family comprises 17 enzymes, which generate poly(ADP-ribose) and/or mono(ADP-ribose) (MAR) that can modify target protein function and can function as a signalling scaffold. These modifications may have various roles in cancer and, as discussed in this Opinion article, inhibitors of MARylation in particular may warrant investigation as anticancer drugs.

This Opinion article discusses emerging evidence that nicotine has tumour-promoting activities and may also have direct mutagenic effects, in addition to its effects in combination with tobacco carcinogens. The author suggests that these data should be considered in the development and evaluation of non-tobacco nicotine products.

The burden of chemotherapy-associated toxicity is well recognized, but we have relatively few tools that increase the precision of anticancer drug prescribing. This article proposes that broader agnostic analyses to systematically correlate germline genetic variants with adverse events in large, well-defined cancer populations might improve the current situation.

Emerging data indicate that hypoxia and the extracellular matrix (ECM) together might have a crucial role in metastasis. In this Opinion article the authors suggest a model in which multiple microenvironmental signals might converge to synergistically influence metastatic outcome.

This Opinion article discusses how principles that are applied to the study of ecology might be relevant to the study of cancer. Focusing on population dynamics, this article provides suggestions and ideas for understanding tumour growth and how this might provide strategies for eradication.

There are many cellular outcomes attributable to p53 activation, but identifying which of these, or which combination of these, is important for tumour suppression has remained challenging. As new roles for p53 emerge, this Opinion dissects the role of p53 in tumour suppression.

The early detection and prevention of childhood cancer is an important area of cancer research. In this Opinion article, the authors argue that identifying whether some childhood cancers arise from an aberrant prenatal cell population could help with disease prevention.

Minimally invasive thermal ablation of tumours has become common since the advent of modern imaging. This Opinion article examines the mechanisms of tumour cell death that are induced by the most common thermoablative techniques and discusses the rapidly developing areas of research in the field.

The androgen receptor (AR) regulates transcription networks and genomic stability. Selection pressures during prostate cancer development and therapy can affect the activity and regulation of AR across the genome. Defining other factors involved in this reprogramming of AR function provides various opportunities for therapeutic intervention.

The cadherin superfamily includes many proteins other than E-cadherin. These cadherins are very diverse in both structure and function, and their mutual interactions seem to influence cancer development and progression in complex and versatile ways.