News & Comment

Kaczanowska, Beury et al. find that the presence of a distant tumour induces immunosuppressive programmes in the lung, and that treatment of mice with genetically engineered myeloid cells expressing interleukin-12 reduces metastatic burden and improves survival.

Pfister et al. demonstrate a role for unconventionally activated CD8⁺PD1⁺ T cells in NASH-HCC, which limits response to immunotherapy.

Bertocchi et al. show that tumour-resident bacteria in colorectal cancer disseminate to the liver via an impaired gut vascular barrier and promote the liver pre-metastatic niche.

Tello-Lafoz et al. find that the increased rigidity of cancer cells during metastasis can result in a biophysical vulnerability to killing by cytotoxic lymphocytes through a form of mechanosurveillance.

Cancer genomics research in Africa is crucial to understanding the genetic architecture of cancer and tailoring cancer diagnoses and therapies to African populations. Creating this research enterprise in Africa has to be purposeful with a roadmap that incorporates individual scientist-, international collaborator-, university or institution-, and scientific organization-level factors.

The incidence of early-onset colorectal cancer (EOCRC) continues to rise and disproportionately affects people of African descent. This Comment advocates for mechanistic studies that can help mitigate EOCRC disparities.

Two recent papers describe the development of bispecific antibodies that specifically target neoantigens derived from common oncogenic mutations.

Bach et al. find that loss of the tumour suppressor BRCA1 may drive the development of triple negative breast cancer through inducing aberrant alveolar differentiation of luminal progenitor cells.

Ueda et al. report that overexpression of MDMX in pre-leukaemic stem cells provides these cells with a competitive advantage and promotes the progression of various pre-leukaemic conditions to acute myeloid leukaemia in several mouse models.

The COVID-19 pandemic has reminded scientists and clinicians about the importance of public engagement with science. This World View argues that one way accomplish this is to embed an informal science learning centre within a research institute.

Gao, Xia, Li, Zhang et al. show that a circular RNA-encoded variant of E-Cadherin stimulates EGFR signalling independently of EGF, and contributes to glioblastoma tumorigenesis and anti-EGFR therapy resistance.

Butler and Cafaro et al. identify a mechanism of MYC inhibition by uropathogenic Escherichia coli that may have therapeutic potential in cancer.

Biswas et al. show that B cell infiltration in ovarian cancer leads to humoral immune responses dominated by polyclonal IgA, which mark ovarian cancer cells to be removed by myeloid cells, and also sensitize cancer cells to T cell-mediated cytolysis thereby controlling tumour growth.

Two recent papers report the first-in-human clinical trials investigating the efficacy and safety of faecal microbiota transplantation for metastatic melanoma that is refractory to cancer immunotherapy.

Yuan, Flores et al. find that NSD3, which encodes a histone H3 lysine 36 methyltransferase, is likely an important of driver of a subset of lung squamous cell carcinomas and show that these tumours may be sensitive to bromodomain inhibitors.

Yu and Green et al. describe a novel mechanism of systemic immunosuppression by liver metastases, whereby intrahepatic myeloid cells induce apoptosis of activated, tumour-specific T cells.

Chen et al. find that arsenic trioxide (ATO), an FDA-approved agent for acute promyelocytic leukaemia, can rescue common p53 structural mutants and restore p53 function.

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, this World View highlights the need to revolutionize current cancer research practices in terms of animal models and the collection and distribution of patient samples, in order to avoid history repeating itself in future pandemics.

Bartok, Pataskar, Nagel et al. show that long-term interferon γ-induced tryptophan degradation interferes with mRNA translation in melanoma. They reveal a mechanism by which indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase 1 and amino acid starvation-dependent ribosomal frameshifting leads to immunogenic aberrant peptide presentation.

Research funders are uniquely placed to develop and promote collaborations between multiple partners, including industry, in a positive and ethical way. This Comment calls for funders to take action to ensure that discoveries progress from the lab to patients with cancer.