SUMMARY The mechanisms underlying the multistep process of tumorigenesis can be distilled into a logical framework involving the acquisition of functional capabilities, the so-called hallmarks of cancer, which are collectively envisaged to be necessary for malignancy. These capabilities, embodied both in transformed cancer cells as well as in the heterotypic accessory cells that together constitute the tumor microenvironment (TME), are conveyed by certain abnormal characteristics of the cancerous phenotype. This perspective discusses the link between the nervous system and the induction of hallmark capabilities, revealing neurons and neuronal projections (axons) as hallmark-inducing constituents of the TME. We also discuss the autocrine and paracrine neuronal regulatory circuits aberrantly activated in cancer cells that may constitute a distinctive “enabling” characteristic contributing to the manifestation of hallmark functions and consequent cancer pathogenesis.
Cancer hallmarks intersect with neuroscience in the tumor microenvironment
Published 2023 in Cancer Cell
ABSTRACT
PUBLICATION RECORD
- Publication year
2023
- Venue
Cancer Cell
- Publication date
2023-03-01
- Fields of study
Biology, Medicine
- Identifiers
- External record
- Source metadata
Semantic Scholar, PubMed
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