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BRAIN TUMOURS

Tumour cells co-opt synaptic signalling

Nature Reviews Cancer volume 19, page 663 (2019)Cite this article

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Gliomas and breast-cancer-derived brain metastases (B2BMs) are types of brain tumour associated with poor prognosis. Whether and how the cells in these tumours interact synaptically with other brain cells has not been clear. Three papers in Nature now detail synaptic interactions between neurons and glioma or B2BM cells that seem to promote tumour growth.

Both groups recorded excitatory postsynaptic potentials (EPSCs) in glioma cells in tumour samples from human patients or in slices of tumour-xenografted mouse brains. These EPSCs depended on neuronal activity, suggesting that the observed neurogliomal synapses were functional. Moreover, in line with the gene-expression data, the EPSCs depended on Ca2+-permeable AMPARs.

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References

Original articles

  • Venkatesh, H. S. et al. Electrical and synaptic integration of glioma into neural circuits. Nature 573, 539–545 (2019)

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  • Venkataramani, V. et al. Glutamatergic synaptic input to glioma cells drives brain tumour progression. Nature 573, 532–538 (2019)

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  • Zeng, Q. et al. Synaptic proximity enables NMDAR signalling to promote brain metastasis. Nature 573, 526–531 (2019)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

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  1. Senior Editor, Nature Reviews Neuroscience http://www.nature.com/nrc/

    Natasha Bray

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  1. Natasha Bray
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Correspondence to Natasha Bray.

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Bray, N. Tumour cells co-opt synaptic signalling. Nat Rev Cancer 19, 663 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41568-019-0217-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41568-019-0217-6

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