Cancer adapts and overcomes many different obstacles in order to survive. Since tumors are masses of rapidly growing cells, it takes a lot of nutrients, signaling, and proteins to help maintain proliferation. Over the last two decades, researchers have discovered that nerves provide tumors with signals, neurotransmitters, growth factors, and molecules to aid in cancer genesis, growth, survival, and progression. This process of nerves growing around and within the tumor is known as ‘tumor innervation’ or ‘nerve hacking’. This provides a source of nutrients for the tumor and makes the tumor microenvironment (TME) more complex or difficult to treat. Solid tumors in particular benefit from nerve hacking and more nerves innervating the tumor correlate with worse outcomes in patients. Therefore, researchers are working on understanding this process and how to best treat patients with increased tumor innervation.
Novel research published by scientists at the University of Oklahoma demonstrated how breast cancer cells can attract nerves to fuel their growth. It has been a mystery how nerves get to the tumor, until recently. This new study in Cell Death & Differentiation concludes that triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) uses the body’s own immune system to interconnect with nerves. The study performed by Dr. Maureen A. Cox and others clearly show that a specialized immune cell, known as a macrophage, is directly responsible for nerve hacking and tumor progression.
Cox is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Microbiology & Immunology within the College of Medicine at the University of Oklahoma. Her work focuses on the nervous systems and how nerves and immune cells interact to respond to cancer. Specifically, Cox investigates how immune cells facilitate nerve growth and subsequently promote cancer through indirect mechanisms.
