The InteroCANCEption team, funded by Cancer Grand Challenges, reports that sensory nerves in the tumour microenvironment actively support cancer growth and that lung tumours can reshape nearby nerves to blunt immune responses. The team said cigarette smoke increased neuronal activity and accelerated tumour progression through this neuro‑immune pathway.

Lead investigator Dr Leanne Li, group leader at The Francis Crick Institute and head of InteroCANCEption, framed the work as an effort to map how peripheral nerves, the autonomic nervous system and the brain coordinate local and systemic changes during cancer. The Cancer Grand Challenges programme is co‑funded by Cancer Research UK and the US National Cancer Institute.

Li and colleagues used genetically engineered mouse models (GEMMs) and GEMM‑derived cell lines to study tumours with intact nervous and immune systems. Those models let the team observe nerve–tumour interactions across stages of tumour development rather than after tumour transplantation.

“When we look at tumours, they interact directly with the peripheral nervous system to impact cancer biology,” Li said. The team reported that nerve presence in tumours — known as innervation — correlates with poor outcomes in multiple cancers and can regulate angiogenesis and extracellular matrix remodelling, processes that support growth and spread.

The researchers argue that neurons also shape anti‑tumour immunity. Chemical signals from sensory nerves were observed to interfere with immune responses in the tumour microenvironment. In the lung tumour models the team studied, cigarette smoke raised neuronal activity and worsened tumour progression via that neuroimmune route, the group said.

Technologies such as single‑cell sequencing, spatial omics and refined neurobiology tools have made these observations possible, Li told Technology Networks. She added that the field “only” solidified after glioma studies in recent years and that methods to visualise neurons in tumour tissue were previously limited.

InteroCANCEption views these findings as a foundation for new therapeutic strategies. The group is exploring whether targeting specific peripheral neuronal subtypes with drugs, neural prosthetics or local neuromodulation could change the tumour microenvironment and increase responsiveness to immunotherapy. Li cautioned that such clinical applications remain a longer‑term goal.

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Tags: cancer neuroscience, peripheral nervous system, sensory neurons, neuromodulation, lung cancer

Topics: Neuromodulation, Neuroscience & neuroplasticity, Neuroprosthetics & neural implants