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Wieland et al. report that the tumour microenvironment of human papillomavirus (HPV)-positive head and neck squamous cell carcinomas contains HPV-specific B cells that actively secrete HPV-specific antibodies.
Banh et al. show that peripheral axons of sensory nerves release serine into the tumour microenvironment, which can support the growth of extracellular serine-dependent pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma by promoting mRNA translation.
There is evidence of a mounting mental health crisis among researchers, which may be exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. This Comment article discusses what cancer researchers and institutions can do to promote good mental health and wellbeing within their research communities.
Using single-cell multiomics, Zhou et al. show that somatic copy number alterations (SCNAs) are prevalent in non-epithelial cells from colorectal cancers and normal tissues. Tumours were enriched for fibroblasts with SCNAs, in particular whole chromosome 7 gain.
Cerezo-Wallis et al. show that the melanoma-secreted growth factor midkine drives an inflamed, immunosuppressive tumour microenvironment, by promoting tumour-associated macrophage phenotypes that induce CD8+ T cell dysfunction.
Riva et al. exposed mice to a range of 20 known or suspected human carcinogens and then profiled the mutational signatures that arose in the tumours induced by them, finding that surprisingly the majority of the chemicals were not directly mutagenic.
Smith, Whitehall et al. report evidence that somatic mutations in mitochondrial DNA that increase with age in the colorectal epithelium and that reduce oxidative phosphorylation can promote colorectal tumorigenesis.
Johnstone, Reyes et al. find that colorectal cancer cells undergo substantial compartmental reorganization and that this likely supresses, rather than promotes, tumorigenesis.
Two studies have now provided evidence of differences, dependent on patient sex, in oncogenic features, such as frequencies of driver gene mutations, mutation load and mutational signatures, as well as immune selection.
Gomes et al. show that age-dependent upregulation of levels of the metabolite methylmalonic acid (MMA) in serum from healthy donors can promote tumour progression in mice via SOX4-dependent regulation of cell fate decisions.
Disseminated cancer cells in the cerebrospinal fluid of leptomeningeal metastasis not only face survival on limited resources but must also escape activation of an immune response. Chi et al. suggest cancer cells can accomplish this by outcompeting macrophages for an essential micronutrient, iron.
Li, W., Hu, J., Shi, B. et al. showed that the appropriate phase separation property of the protein AKAP95 was required for its regulation of splicing and expression of cancer-related genes, thereby contributing to tumorigenesis.
Koelwyn et al. investigated the connection between cardiovascular events and cancer progression and found that systemic changes induced by myocardial infarction can promote breast tumour growth and increase the risk of cancer-specific death.
Two papers in Nature Medicine report studies that validate the utility of cell-free methylated DNA analysis for early detection of renal cell carcinomas and diagnosis of central nervous system tumours.
Aitken et al. have used mutagen-induced liver tumours to trace individual strands of the DNA double helix to which damage occurred and correlate this with mutational patterns to inform upon tumour evolution.
Using a rapid mass-spectrometry based approach to analyse aerosol released during surgical cauterization of tumour tissue, Koundouros et al. derived metabolic signatures associated with the tumour genotype. Based on these signatures, they identified a new mechanism by which oncogenic PI3K signalling promotes tumour growth.
Allen, Hiam et al. have used mass cytometry to characterize the immune landscape over time in response to tumour development, demonstrating that tumour growth dynamically alters the systemic immune landscape and that this can be reverted by tumour removal.
Baksh et al. have delineated a pathway through which serine availability is integrated with stem cell fate decisions and can control the initiation of epidermal squamous cell carcinomas.
Nejman et al. have comprehensively characterized the bacteria present in 1,526 human tumours and their adjacent normal tissues encompassing seven different solid tumour types. Their initial findings suggest that much like the gut microbiome, the tumour microbiome may impact many aspects of tumour biology.
