Work published in Nature by Mahnoor Mahmood and Payam Gammage, in collaboration with Ed Reznik at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre, has shown that tumours with high levels of mtDNA mutations are two and a half times more likely to respond to immunotherapy treatment. The data nominates mtDNA mutations as functional regulators of cancer metabolism and tumour biology, with potential for therapeutic exploitation and treatment stratification. Read more on their work here.

New research published by Arafath Najumudeen, Andy Campbell, Owen Sansom, and colleagues in Nature Communications demonstrates a critical role for wild-type KRAS in tumour initiation and progression of mutant KRAS-driven tumours. The research team used genetically engineered mouse models to show that in the presence of an oncogenic Kras allele, loss of the wild-type Kras allele augments oncogenic Kras signalling, leading to increased tumour initiation in vivo. This research provides evidence that loss of wildtype Kras facilitates and accelerates tumour initiation but drastically alters tumour evolution in colorectal cancer.