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Heartbeat of brain tumours targeted

Analysis of an invasive brain cancer reveals that networks of tumour cells are linked to small groups of ‘pacemaker’ cells in which levels of calcium ions pulse periodically, driving a signal through the network that causes tumour growth.
  1. Benjamin Deneen

    1. Benjamin Deneen is in the Department of Neurosurgery, Center for Cancer Neuroscience, Houston, Texas 77030, USA.

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Malignant glioma is an almost universally lethal form of brain cancer for which therapies have not changed markedly over the past 20 years, highlighting the need to find new approaches. As part of the burgeoning field of cancer neuroscience, studies have shown that glioma cells adopt some core properties of healthy brain cells1. Writing in Nature, Hausmann et al.2 reveal that small groups of glioma cells also borrow a communication tool from pacemaker cells in the heart, and show that this mechanism might be a target for future treatments.

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Nature 613, 29-30 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-04354-4

References

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Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

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