Volume 18 Issue 8, August 2018

Tumour-associated neutrophils can inhibit the proliferation of pro-tumoural interleukin-17 (IL-17)⁺ γδ T cells via production of reactive oxygen species.

Increased shortening of RNA 3′ untranslated regions associated with tumorigenic transformation interferes with competing endogenous RNA (eRNA) networks, which results in trans-repression of tumour suppressors through microRNA-mediated silencing.

Three studies published in Developmental Cell, Nature and Nature Medicine shed new light on mechanisms of cancer-associated cachexia in early and advanced disease.

Breast tumours in mice promote metabolic changes in the liver and sleep disruption through increasing activity of hypocretin (also known as orexin) neurons (HO neurons).

Priego et al. show that a subpopulation of reactive astrocytes expressing signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) is crucial for the development of brain metastases and report positive initial clinical data that inhibiting STAT3 can reduce metastasis.

The gut microbiota can metabolize bile acids to affect immunosurveillance in the liver of mice and indirectly control the growth of primary liver tumours and liver metastases.

In this Review, Greaves describes the evidence supporting the model that infections early in life reduce the risk of childhood common B cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (BCP-ALL) development. Given this evidence, paediatric BCP-ALL may be a preventable cancer.

Although the aggressive underlying biology of inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) remains largely undefined, the tumour microenvironment (TME) has emerged as a key contributor. This Review discusses intrinsic characteristics of IBC, extrinsic features of the TME and intrinsic–extrinsic communication.

In this Opinion article, Hosny et al. discuss the application of artificial intelligence to image-based tasks in the field of radiology and consider the advantages and challenges of its clinical implementation.

This Opinion discusses the role of the primary cilium as a platform for pathways implicated in cancer and how changes in the ciliation of cells in the tumour microenvironment can affect cancer progression.