Tumours can be shrunk by inhibiting a naturally occurring transcription factor called Myc to make the tumour microenvironment inhospitable to invasive cells.

Gerard Evan, now at the University of Cambridge, UK, and his team tested the effects of Myc suppression in a mouse model of pancreatic cancer. Inactivating Myc in tumours incapacitated the healthy cells that support cancer cells. This resulted in collapsed blood vessels and reduced inflammatory responses, leading to oxygen starvation and death for tumour cells.

The fact that tumour cell death occurred after microenvironment collapse, even if Myc was inhibited only in cancer cells, suggests that the transcription factor functions as a communicator between tumours and their surroundings. And, as an essential contributor to tumour growth and maintenance, Myc is an attractive therapeutic target — especially because most cells can't wiggle around Myc suppression.

Genes Dev. doi:10.1101/gad.2038411 (2011)