Reviews & Analysis

Inherited inactivating mutations inBRCA1 or BRCA2seem to cause a similar predisposition to breast and ovarian cancer, but a closer look reveals many differences as well. This Perspective discusses the similarities and differences between BRCA1 and BRCA2 and their effects on cancer phenotypes.

Recent evidence indicates that successful cancer clones must have overcome programmed cell removal. In this Opinion article, the authors explore the role of programmed cell removal in both normal and neoplastic cells.

Human cell engineering has made considerable progress, but where to insert foreign sequences in the human genome to maximize safety and efficacy is still uncertain. This Opinion article discusses genomic safe harbours, which are chromosomal locations where therapeutic transgenes can integrate and function without perturbing endogenous gene activity or promoting cancer.

Obesity is increasing in the developed world, and epidemiological studies indicate that this is accompanied by an increased risk of cancer. This Opinion article discusses the possible mechanisms by which obesity might promote tumorigenesis.

Cancer chemoprevention approaches generally use long-term, continuous treatment, which can lead to adverse events. This Opinion article discusses whether short-term, intermittent therapy that exploits synthetic lethal interactions in premalignant cells might reduce the toxicity of chemoprevention while retaining its benefits.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved the immunotherapy agents sipuleucel-T and ipilimumab for the treatment of metastatic prostate cancer and melanoma, respectively. This Opinion article discusses how immunotherapy might be improved by understanding the mechanisms that are responsible for clinical benefit, identifying biomarkers that predict response or toxicity and developing combination therapies.

Epidemiological studies indicate that patients with Parkinson's disease seem to have a reduced risk of developing cancer (although exceptions exist). This Opinion article discusses the genes that are associated with Parkinson's disease and their possible roles in cancer biology.

This Opinion article outlines nine major recommendations for improving our understanding of ovarian cancer and the outcomes of women with this group of diseases.

β-D-N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc) is a post-translational protein modification that has increasingly appreciated roles in many cancer-relevant cellular processes. This Opinion article discusses our current understanding of this modification in cancer biology and in the regulation of transcription factors and chromatin.

Dysregulated pH is emerging as a hallmark of cancer because cancers have a 'reversed' pH gradient, with a constitutively increased intracellular pH that is higher than the extracellular pH. This Perspective highlights the central role of pH sensor proteins in facilitating the adaptations that occur in cancer cells.

This article describes the importance of key physical and mechanical processes at each step of the metastatic cascade. The emerging insight into these physical interactions may lead to new approaches to developing cancer diagnostics and therapies.

Senescence is becoming increasingly appreciated as a powerful mechanism of tumour suppression. This Opinion article discusses how senescence may be capitalized on for therapeutic benefit, and includes the defining features of senescence signalling pathways and the potential molecular strategies and considerations for senescence induction.

This article introduces some preliminary mathematical models of the basic decision circuits in breast cancer cells, with a view to understanding in greater detail their susceptibility or resistance to endocrine therapy.

Transcriptional mutagenesis is a process by which RNA polymerases produce mutated transcripts from bypassing certain lesions in the DNA. This Perspective discusses how this might occur in tumour cells to contribute to the mutator phenotype.

Cohesin is a conserved multisubunit protein complex with diverse cellular roles. Much has been learned in recent years about the roles of cohesin in a physiological context, whereas its potential and emerging role in tumorigenesis has received relatively little attention. Are alterations in cohesin proteins drivers or passengers in cancer?

Dietary phytochemicals, which are thought to be safe for use as cancer prevention agents, have emerged as modulators of key cellular signalling pathways. The task now is to understand how these chemicals perturb these pathways by modelling their interactions with their target proteins.

Experimental evidence suggests that platelets contribute to metastasis through adhesive and haemostatic functions that promote cancer cell survival, immune evasion and interactions with vascular cells to assist organ colonization from the bloodstream.

The successful systemic therapy of advanced visceral metastatic disease remains a daunting challenge, but this therapeutic circumstance has rarely been modelled or studied preclinically. Strategies to develop models of advanced spontaneous metastasis in mice are discussed, and some of the results are summarized.