Settling a Nervous Stomach: The Neural Regulation of Enteric Cancer

Abstract

The nervous system is emerging as a regulator of malignancy. In this issue of Cancer Cell, Hayakawa et al. demonstrate a feedforward signaling loop in which tumor-derived nerve growth factor promotes enteric tumor innervation, and recruited nerves drive cancer growth through acetylcholine-regulated Wnt signaling and stimulation of further NGF release.