Scientists have found that nerves play a critical role in both the development and spread of prostate tumours.
The findings, by researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University in US, using both a mouse model and human prostate tissue, may lead to new ways to predict the aggressiveness of prostate cancer and to novel therapies for preventing and treating the disease.
The study was led by stem-cell expert Paul Frenette, professor of medicine and of cell biology and director of the Ruth L. and David S. Gottesman Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Research at Einstein.
In earlier research, Frenette and colleagues had discovered that the sympathetic nervous system regulates hematopoeitic stem cell niches — the sites in the bone marrow where red blood cells are formed.
Nerves are commonly found around tumours, but their role in the growth and progression of cancer has not been clear. “Since there might be similarities between the hematopoeitic stem cell niche and the stem cell niches found in cancer, we thought that sympathetic nerves might also have a role in tumour development,” said Frenette.