Counter Communication

When a phone scammer calls you, their goal is to keep you talking, as that flow of communication gives them a chance to weasel in and trick you. Exploiting communication is also how incurable brain tumours called glioblastomas spread so fast, forming direct links, synapses, with our neurons (brain cells). Researchers hunting for new treatments investigated these synapses in more detail, and asked whether genetic tweaks to subdue their activity might slow tumour growth. Synapses are tiny gaps between cells, across which chemical messages pass in small packages. The study showed increased accumulation of this message material (green) in the brains of fruit flies with glioblastoma (right) compared to normal flies (left), but that down-regulating activity on either side of the synapse slowed tumour growth. Synaptic connections both between glioblastoma cells and joining them with neurons are key to the cancer development, and could be targets for future treatments.

Written by Anthony Lewis

Anthony Lewis

Writer

Ant was the web editor in the early days of BPoD, and has since worked with the UK’s top science organisations as a writer and multimedia producer. He now splits his time between freelance work and managing multimedia at The Lancet.

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• Image from work by María Losada-Pérez and colleagues
• Instituto Cajal-CSIC, Madrid, Spain
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in PLOS Genetics, July 2022