Prostate Cancer Takes Nerve

Menée à l'aide de modèles murins et d'échantillons tumoraux prélevés sur 43 patients atteints d'un adénocarcinome de la prostate, cette étude met en évidence le rôle joué par des fibres nerveuses du micro-environnement tumoral dans les processus invasif et métastatique

Résumé en anglais

One in six American males will develop prostate cancer during their lifetime, and once prostate cancer metastasizes to distant sites, it is incurable at present (1). This translates into the sobering reality that more than a quarter of a million men will die of prostate cancer this year throughout the world (2). Thus, new therapeutic approaches to this devastating disease are urgently needed. In this regard, preventing and/or disrupting neoneurogenesis—the ingrowth of nerve endings into the tumor—in prostate cancer is a newly discovered therapeutic target. Innervation of the prostate gland controls its growth and maintenance, but little is known about the function of neurons in prostate cancer. On page 10.1126/science.1236361 of this issue, Magnon et al. (3) report how the autonomous nervous system (which controls internal organs and glands, below the level of consciousness) stimulates the initiation and metastasis of prostate cancer.