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In this Journal Club, Maeng and Ku discuss a study demonstrating that profiling drug responses in patient-derived organoids can identify responders to various therapies.
Despite the success of immune-checkpoint inhibitors, many patients are at risk of developing immune-related adverse events. One of these is myocarditis or inflammation of the heart. Munir, Gutierrez and colleagues describe the data from preclinical models and patient samples, which have begun to provide a mechanistic understanding of myocarditis resulting from immune-checkpoint inhibitors, and present suggestions for improving both the diagnosis and treatment of patients experiencing this immune-related toxicity.
In this Review, Polak, Zhang and Kuo discuss the currently available and rapidly evolving 3D tumour organoid models that capture the tumour immune microenvironment. They highlight opportunities for organoid-based investigations of tumour immunity, drug development and precision medicine.
Lim et al. show that ASS1, silenced in many cancer types, is a metabolic checkpoint that, following DNA damage, halts cell cycle progression by restricting nucleotide synthesis and p53-related gene transcription.
In this Review, Harris et al. summarize the dynamic changes of the immune breast tumour microenvironment (TME) that take place during disease progression and in response to treatment, and outline emerging therapies to target the immune TME in patients with breast cancer.
In this study, Allan Balmain and colleagues used a mouse model to monitor stem cell networks at single-cell resolution during skin carcinogenesis, revealing two cancer stem cell states, rapid cycling and plasticity, between which cells can transition to drive tumour initiation, progression and therapy resistance.
The practice of posting preprint manuscripts on servers such as bioRxiv has become increasingly common. In this Comment, Hindle and Sever explore the utility of preprints for advancing researchers careers.
The ability of prenatal cell-free DNA sequencing to incidentally detect occult maternal malignancies was first documented over a decade ago, yet coordinated follow-up of pregnant people who receive these results is still lacking in many countries. Here we provide a call to action for oncologists to become more involved in diagnosing and managing these cases.
Patient progression and response to immunotherapy are directly influenced by the presence and quality of tumour-infiltrating leukocytes (TILs). In a recent Cell publication, Wang, Zeng et al. demonstrate the functional role of circadian rhythms in altering TIL functionality and quantity, highlighting the therapeutic potential of leveraging this understanding.
This month, Nature Reviews Cancer launches Roadmap articles, in which we ask authors to provide a sense of direction to a field to encourage new lines of thinking and experimentation, as well as opportunities for collaboration.
In this Roadmap, Boire et al. consider the immediate causes of mortality in patients with cancer, a topic not often considered in either preclinical or clinical research, and provide recommendations for how we can stimulate research to advance our mechanistic understanding of these causes with a long-term view to improving the quality of life for patients with late-stage cancer.
Although there has been increasing interest in developing models that mimic the tumour microenvironment (TME), these models often fail to replicate the complex 3D fibre architectures observed in tumours. Here, Ashworth and Cox address this, discuss the current design and fabrication challenges, and outline state-of-the-art biomaterial technologies useful for recreating tissue-specific 3D architectures in vitro.
The tumour immune microenvironment greatly affects responses to immune checkpoint therapies. In this Perspective, Zemek et al. explore the dynamic changes in response to both immunotherapy and conventional treatment and advocate for strategic combination therapies over time to enhance antitumour immune responses.
Metastasis to the leptomeninges causes substantial neurological morbidity and mortality. Owing to the lack of mechanistic studies in this area, patients still face a bleak clinical prognosis. In this Review, Remsik and Boire provide a biology-focused overview of recent developments enabled by preclinical models and omics analyses and outline the need for further mechanistic research on leptomeningeal metastasis.
In this Perspective, Holder et al. discuss the limitations of current predictive biomarkers of response to immune checkpoint inhibitors and the need to further explore static, dynamic and patient-specific biomarkers using novel tools, such as machine learning and consortia-level initiatives.
In this Tools of the Trade article, Erin Brown describes the development of CytoSPACE, a computational tool that aligns single-cell transcriptomes and spatial transcriptomic data, and highlights its use in identifying spatially resolved cell states in the tumour microenvironment.
To establish microbiome-based screening for colorectal cancer, a study published in Nature Medicine tackled two key challenges: utilizing quantitative microbiome profiling and identifying covariates that might obscure the microbiota–colorectal cancer interactions.
Monteran et al. identified key interactions between granulocytes and T cells that promote an immunosuppressive bone microenvironment, enabling breast cancer metastasis.
Parreno et al. provide evidence for epigenetically initiated cancers in Drosophila and show that cancer develops after transient loss of Polycomb group proteins in the absence of recurrent mutations.
