Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
This Review summarizes the epidemiology literature linking data-driven and investigator-defined dietary patterns to cancer risk, providing expert appraisal of new developments in the field and highlighting both emerging mechanistic insights and key areas for future research.
The majority of cancers arise in individuals over the age of 60. This Review discusses how ageing tissues through changes in the extracellular matrix as well as in the functions of fibroblasts and immune cells can impact tumour initiation, progression and response to therapy.
This Review discusses recent genomic, epigenomic, transcriptomic and proteomic profiling studies of human medulloblastoma that have advanced our understanding of its disease subgroups. These efforts have provided new insights into the diverse biology of medulloblastomas that will hopefully lead to improved diagnosis and therapy.
This Review discusses altered cellular metabolism in gliomas, with particular regard to the interaction between tumour genotype and the brain microenvironment, and how advances in studying glioma metabolism have contributed to the discovery of potential drug targets.
This Review discusses how advances in our understanding of the immune system within the brain have implications for the successful implementation of immunotherapy to treat brain tumours, despite challenges such as effective delivery, target specificity and intratumour heterogeneity.
This Review discusses the role of bodily fluids and their underlying forces and imposed stresses in metastasis, highlighting the contributions of fluid mechanics to tumour cell intravasation, intravascular arrest and extravasation as well as to dissemination of tumour-derived factors.
In this Viewpoint article, we asked four experts to provide their opinions on important aspects of brain metastasis biology, focusing on the unique microenvironment and therapeutic targets in the brain, preclinical models and how studying brain metastases could inform primary brain tumour biology.
This Review discusses the PI3K–AKT signalling network and its control of cancer cell metabolism through both direct and indirect regulation of nutrient transport and metabolic enzymes, thereby connecting oncogenic signalling and metabolic reprogramming to support cancer cell survival and proliferation.
This Review discusses the complex and context-dependent role of the complement system in cancer, highlighting the opposing effects of complement activation in both promoting and restraining tumour progression. A novel analysis of publicly available transcriptomic data to provide an overview of the prognostic value of complement gene expression in cancer is also included.
In this Perspectives article, the authors outline the preclinical and clinical evidence for epithelial–mesenchymal plasticity (EMP) in cancer progression and metastasis, focusing on recent challenges and controversies, and highlight strategies to therapeutically target the EMP process.
To date, studies investigating mechanisms of therapy resistance have primarily focused on tumour-intrinsic changes, yet it is now clear that host responses to different cancer therapies can contribute to tumour regrowth, spread and resistance to therapy. This Review discusses the recent advances in understanding host-mediated pro-tumorigenic responses to cancer therapy, with an emphasis on therapy-induced immunological, angiogenic and metastatic effects.
This Review discusses the structure and function of the blood–brain barrier (BBB) and how brain tumours and brain metastases compromise BBB integrity. It also discusses the challenges the BBB poses for cancer therapy and how these might be overcome.
This Opinion discusses the effects of dietary factors on tumour growth and progression through changes in nutrient availability and metabolism, proposing an experimental framework for the investigation of the connections between diet and tumour metabolism.
The research autopsy is an underused approach to investigate fundamental questions in cancer biology. This Review discusses the rationale for using research autopsies in cancer research, highlighting how this approach has improved knowledge of cancer biology and its tremendous potential to inform future precision medicine strategies.
Methionine uptake and metabolism contributes to cancer pathogenesis through functions in methylation reactions and one-carbon metabolism. This Review discusses methionine metabolism in the context of nutrition and the potential of targeting methionine metabolism in cancer through dietary or pharmacological intervention.
This Review discusses the various approaches that are being explored to target transcription factors in cancer, with many of the inhibitors developed from such approaches now advancing to early clinical trials.
Previous nanomedicine approaches have attempted to concentrate the action of cytotoxic therapies at tumours, generally with limited success. This Review discusses how the field is evolving to use nanoparticles and biomaterials to program the location, pharmacokinetics and co-delivery of immunotherapies, eliciting responses that cannot be achieved upon administration of such compounds in solution.
Innate immune checkpoints, including those regulating tumour detection and phagocytosis, have emerged as potential cancer immunotherapy targets. This Review discusses the role of phagocytosis checkpoints in cancer immune evasion, highlighting the preclinical and early clinical evidence supporting phagocytosis checkpoint blockade.
This Review discusses how circulating tumour cell (CTC) analysis at single-cell resolution provides unique insights into tumour heterogeneity that are not revealed by analysis of circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) derived from liquid biopsies.
In this Viewpoint article, we asked four female scientists to describe their experiences of gender representation during their scientific careers and to identify the challenges and possible solutions to empowering women in cancer research and science more generally.