From TNBC to Ovarian Cancer: Next Steps for Targeting Tumor Nerves

This is part 2 of an interview. Watch part 1 here.

Building on their new paper in Cell Death & Differentiation, study authors Maureen A. Cox, PhD, and Jumana Abbadi, MD, of the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, look ahead to where their research on tumor innervation in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) goes next.

Cox outlines her lab's interest in extending the work to high-grade serous ovarian cancer, which she describes as a "sister disease" to TNBC that shares many of the same molecular drivers. Abbadi adds that ovarian tumors, like TNBC, lack estrogen and progesterone receptor expression, raising the possibility that they respond similarly to TrkB-targeted therapy.

Cox notes that ovarian cancer is typically diagnosed after it has already metastasized, and that current treatment—largely surgical debulking—does not offer a cure once disease has spread through the peritoneal cavity. A key open question for her group is whether new metastases growing in the peritoneal cavity depend on nerve ingrowth the same way primary TNBC tumors do, and whether blocking that innervation could slow metastatic disease or improve the effect of existing therapies.

Beyond new tumor types, Abbadi discusses the potential for brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) to serve as a clinical biomarker. By staining patient tumor sections for BDNF and correlating it with the degree of nerve infiltration and macrophage presence, she suggests clinicians could eventually identify which patients are most likely to benefit from BDNF/TrkB-targeted treatment, or use those markers to help gauge prognosis.

Abbadi closes by underscoring why continued investment in TNBC research matters: as she notes, the subtype causes more deaths than its prevalence alone would suggest and still offers fewer treatment options than other breast cancer subtypes. She points to the possibility of extending the BDNF/TrkB-targeting approach beyond TNBC as one of the most exciting directions to emerge from the study.

REFERENCE
Abbadi J, Velayutham R, Annan AC, et al. Macrophage-secreted brain-derived neurotrophic factor promotes tumor growth in triple-negative breast cancer by inducing axonogenesis. Cell Death Differ. doi.org/10.1038/s41418-026-01796-5