Volume 14 Issue 4, April 2014

John Dick and colleagues have found that pre-leukaemic haematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) are present in patients with acute myeloid leukaemia. These cells contain clinically relevant mutations but can act as functional HSCs and undergo multilineage differentiation. Furthermore, these cells seem to be resistant to chemotherapy and could contribute to relapse.

Expression of BRG1, an ATPase subunit of SWI/SNF complexes, can suppress the formation of intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasm.

Independent of its mutagenic effects, induction of an innate inflammatory response by ultraviolet radiation can promote angiotropism and metastasis in mice with melanoma.

Two papers have found that high-grade bladder cancer can be spilt into several subtypes, including luminal and basal subtypes, which match these subtypes in breast cancer.

Zhuet al. identified mutations in the histone-lysine N-methyltransferase SETD2and showed that these mutations cooperate with other genetic aberrations to promote acute leukaemia.

Four recent papers have highlighted the importance of the disruption of the chromatin-modifying SWI/SNF axis in human cancer.

A paper inCellshows that partial reprogramming of somatic cells induces epithelial tumorigenesis.

Moriet al. show that the Hippo pathway component Yes-associated protein (YAP) controls processing of microRNAs through regulating the Microprocessor complex in a cell density-dependent manner and that this is linked to tumour suppression.

Paolinoet al. have shown that deletion or inhibition of casitas B-lineage lymphoma-b (Cbl-b) decreases metastasis in various mouse tumour models by activating natural killer cells.

A high school student has helped to study the underlying genetic cause of a rare tumour type, of which she is also a survivor.

Bruton's tyrosine kinase (BTK) is important in B cell receptor (BCR) signalling, and so BTK is altered in many types of B cell-derived malignancy. This Review discusses the molecular biology of BTK, its involvement in the pathogenesis of B cell malignancies and the current efforts to therapeutically target it.

F-box proteins, which are the substrate-recognition subunits of SKP1–cullin 1–F-box protein (SCF) E3 ubiquitin ligase complexes, have pivotal roles in multiple cellular processes. This Review discusses how dysregulation of F-box protein-mediated proteolysis contributes to tumorigenesis.

This Review describes some of the latest techniques that are being used to discover modulators of protein–protein interactions and how current drug discovery approaches have been adapted to successfully target these interfaces.

The glucose-regulated proteins (GRPs) are stress-inducible chaperones that mostly reside in the endoplasmic reticulum or the mitochondria. Recent advances have shown that the GRPs are involved in the regulation of cell signalling, proliferation, invasion, apoptosis, inflammation and immunity. Agents that target the GRPs are being developed as potential cancer therapies.

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.