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Cancer Microenvironment

Section edited by Davide Bedognetti and Jessica Roelands

© © nopparit / Getty Images / iStock

The Cancer microenvironment section publishes research on the cellular and molecular components of the cancer microenvironment, with a particular focus on translational research that has important implications for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of human neoplasms.

Submissions that relate to the characterisation of the molecular profile and regulation of cancers at different tumour stages are especially welcome, as are those which identify specific cancer microenvironments that predict tumour incidence, response to therapy and outcome. Laboratory studies of new drugs and biological agents that target cancer microenvironments will also be considered.

Featured articles


microRNA-1271 impedes the development of prostate cancer by downregulating PES1 and upregulating ERβ

Research | Zhenming Jiang et al


Tumor microenvironment differences between primary tumor and brain metastases

Review | Bernardo Cacho-Díaz et al


Identification of key genes controlling breast cancer stem cell characteristics via stemness indices analysis

Research | Jianying Pei et al

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  1. Protein cysteine oxidation is substantially involved in various biological and pathogenic processes, but its implications in pancreatic cancer development remains poorly understood.

    Authors: Chaochao Tan, Lichun Chen, Xiaoyu Guan, Wenyi Huang, Yinhong Feng, Ziyi Li, Ling Wu, Xiangping Huang, Qianhui Ouyang, Sixiang Liu, Ying Huang and Jiliang Hu
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2024 22:287
  2. Ovarian cancer (OC) is distinguished by its aggressive nature and the limited efficacy of current treatment strategies. Recent studies have emphasized the significant role of cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAF...

    Authors: Songwei Feng, Bo Ding, Zhu Dai, Han Yin, Yue Ding, Sicong Liu, Ke Zhang, Hao Lin, Zhongdang Xiao and Yang Shen
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2024 22:280
  3. The study of resistance-causing mutations in oncogene-driven tumors is fundamental to guide clinical decisions. Several point mutations affecting the ROS1 kinase domain have been identified in the clinical set...

    Authors: Marc Terrones, Christophe Deben, Felicia Rodrigues-Fortes, Anne Schepers, Ken Op de Beeck, Guy Van Camp and Geert Vandeweyer
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2024 22:234
  4. The global cellular landscape of the tumor microenvironment (TME) combining primary and metastatic liver tumors has not been comprehensively characterized.

    Authors: Menghui Gui, Shilin Huang, Shizhou Li, Yuying Chen, Furong Cheng, Yulin Liu, Ji-ao Wang, Yuting Wang, Rui Guo, Yiming Lu, Pengbo Cao and Gangqiao Zhou
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2024 22:206
  5. Aberrant upregulation of the ubiquitin-specific protease 14 (USP14) has been found in some malignant tumors, including oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). In this study, we further demonstrated that aberrantl...

    Authors: Xingming Zhang, Lou Geng, Yi Tang, Yingying Wang, Youping Zhang, Chujiao Zhu, Hu Lei, Hanzhang Xu, Qi Zhu, Yingli Wu and Wenli Gu
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2024 22:193
  6. Digital histopathology provides valuable information for clinical decision-making. We hypothesized that a deep risk network (DeepRisk) based on digital pathology signature (DPS) derived from whole-slide images...

    Authors: Mengxin Tian, Zhao Yao, Yufu Zhou, Qiangjun Gan, Leihao Wang, Hongwei Lu, Siyuan Wang, Peng Zhou, Zhiqiang Dai, Sijia Zhang, Yihong Sun, Zhaoqing Tang, Jinhua Yu and Xuefei Wang
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2024 22:182
  7. Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the leading cancer worldwide. Microbial agents have been considered to contribute to the pathogenesis of different disease. But the underlying relevance between CRC and microbiota re...

    Authors: Shaomin Zou, Chao Yang, Jieping Zhang, Dan Zhong, Manqi Meng, Lu Zhang, Honglei Chen and Lekun Fang
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2024 22:175
  8. Immunotherapy brings new hope to patients with advanced gastric cancer. However, liver metastases can reduce the efficacy of immunotherapy in patients. Tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) may be the cause of t...

    Authors: Yan Du, Yilin Lin, Lin Gan, Shuo Wang, Shuang Chen, Chen Li, Sen Hou, Bozhi Hu, Bo Wang, Yingjiang Ye and Zhanlong Shen
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2024 22:158
  9. Tumor cells of diffuse-type gastric cancer (DGC) are discohesive and infiltrate into the stroma as single cells or small subgroups, so the stroma significantly impacts DGC progression. Cancer-associated fibrob...

    Authors: Dagyeong Lee, In-Hye Ham, Hye Jeong Oh, Dong Min Lee, Jung Hwan Yoon, Sang-Yong Son, Tae-Min Kim, Jae-Young Kim, Sang-Uk Han and Hoon Hur
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2024 22:154
  10. The tumor-agnostic indication of immune checkpoint inhibitors to treat cancers with mismatch repair deficiency (dMMR)/microsatellite instability (MSI) increased the demand for such tests beyond Lynch syndrome....

    Authors: Maja L. Nádorvári, István Kenessey, András Kiss, Tamás Barbai, Janina Kulka, Erzsébet Rásó and József Tímár
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2024 22:150
  11. Lymph node metastasis (LNM) is a prognostic biomarker and affects therapeutic selection in colorectal cancer (CRC). Current evaluation methods are not adequate for estimating LNM in CRC. H&E images contain muc...

    Authors: Wei Jiang, Huaiming Wang, Xiaoyu Dong, Yandong Zhao, Chenyan Long, Dexin Chen, Botao Yan, Jiaxin Cheng, Zexi Lin, Shuangmu Zhuo, Hui Wang and Jun Yan
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2024 22:103
  12. Risk stratification and personalized care are crucial in managing osteosarcoma due to its complexity and heterogeneity. However, current prognostic prediction using clinical variables has limited accuracy. Thu...

    Authors: Guanyu Huang, Xuelin Zhang, Yu Xu, Shuo Chen, Qinghua Cao, Weihai Liu, Yiwei Fu, Qiang Jia, Jingnan Shen, Junqiang Yin and Jiajun Zhang
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2024 22:88
  13. Metastasis is the leading cause of high mortality in colorectal cancer (CRC), which is not only driven by changes occurring within the tumor cells, but is also influenced by the dynamic interaction between can...

    Authors: Siyu Hou, Yuanchun Zhao, Jiajia Chen, Yuxin Lin and Xin Qi
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2024 22:62
  14. Cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) are heterogeneous and can influence the progression of prostate cancer in multiple ways; however, their capacity to present and process antigens in PRAD has not been invest...

    Authors: Wenhao Wang, Tiewen Li, Zhiwen Xie, Jing Zhao, Yu Zhang, Yuan Ruan and Bangmin Han
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2024 22:57
  15. Muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC) is a highly aggressive disease with a poor prognosis. B cells are crucial factors in tumor suppression, and tertiary lymphoid structures (TLSs) facilitate immune cell recr...

    Authors: Hao Yuan, Xingning Mao, Yunkun Yan, Rong Huang, Qingyun Zhang, Yanyu Zeng, Mengying Bao, Yan Dai, Bo Fang, Junhao Mi, Yuli Xie, Xiang Wang, Haiying Zhang, Zengnan Mo and Rirong Yang
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2024 22:48
  16. Aberrant intracellular or intercellular signaling pathways are important mechanisms that contribute to the development and progression of cancer. However, the intercellular communication associated with the de...

    Authors: Junfeng Zhang, Fuzhong Liu, Wenjia Guo, Xing Bi, Shuai Yuan, Fuerhaiti Shayiti, Ting Pan, Kailing Li and Peng Chen
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2024 22:37
  17. The tumor microenvironment clearly influences cancer progressing properties but less is known about how individual cancer microenvironments potentially moderate cancer treatment effects. By cultivating and tre...

    Authors: Maria Carmen Leiva, Anna Gustafsson, Elena Garre, Anders Ståhlberg, Anikó Kovács, Khalil Helou and Göran Landberg
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:924
  18. Intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC) is poorly treated due to the presence of an inhibitory immune microenvironment. Tumor-associated macrophages (TAM) are an important component of TME. ALOX5 is an important...

    Authors: Jialu Chen, Yue Tang, Delong Qin, Xiaopeng Yu, Huanjun Tong, Chengwei Tang and Zhaohui Tang
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:923
  19. The immune-related microenvironment of thymic carcinoid has rarely been reported. We analyzed the expression of PD-L1 and VISTA, and the distribution of CD4+ T cells, CD8+ T cells and CD68+ macrophages in the thy...

    Authors: Jiaqi Zhang, Chao Guo, Lei Liu, Ke Zhao, Mengxin Zhou, Yeye Chen and Shanqing Li
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:894
  20. The tumor microenvironment and intercellular communication between solid tumors and the surrounding stroma play crucial roles in cancer initiation, progression, and prognosis. Radiomics provides clinically rel...

    Authors: Ming Fan, Kailang Wang, You Zhang, Yuanyuan Ge, Zhong Lü and Lihua Li
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:851
  21. The tumor microenvironment plays a key role in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) development and also influences the effective response to immunotherapy. The pro-inflammatory factor interleukin-17A mediates i...

    Authors: Hua Liao, Xiaodan Chang, Lin Gao, Cuiping Ye, Yujie Qiao, Lingyan Xie, Jie Lin, Shaoxi Cai and Hangming Dong
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:828
  22. Cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) are the most abundant stromal cell population in breast tumors. A functionally diverse population of CAFs increases the dynamic complexity of the tumor microenvironment (TM...

    Authors: Wenfeng Zhang, Jia Wang, Cun Liu, Ye Li, Changgang Sun, Jibiao Wu and Qibiao Wu
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:827
  23. Tregs are key drivers of immunosuppression in solid tumors. As an important chemokine receptor on Tregs, the regulatory effect of CCR8 on tumor immunity has received more and more attention. However, the curre...

    Authors: Shuna Liu, Ziqi Tao, Jianfang Lou, Rong Li, Xin Fu, Juan Xu, Ting Wang, Lei Zhang, Wenwen Shang, Yepeng Mao and Fang Wang
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:803
  24. The immune system plays a crucial role in initiating, progressing, and disseminating HNSCC. This study aims to investigate the differences in immune microenvironments between 2D-4-culture and 3D-4-culture mode...

    Authors: Jian Xiao, Yexun Song, Ru Gao, Mingyang You, Changxin Deng, Guolin Tan and Wei Li
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:771
  25. Animal models are widely used to study pathological processes and drug (side) effects in a controlled environment. There is a wide variety of methods available for establishing animal models depending on the r...

    Authors: Mikkel Schou Andersen, Mikkel Seremet Kofoed, Asger Sand Paludan-Müller, Christian Bonde Pedersen, Tiit Mathiesen, Christian Mawrin, Martin Wirenfeldt, Bjarne Winther Kristensen, Birgitte Brinkmann Olsen, Bo Halle and Frantz Rom Poulsen
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:764
  26. BRAF non-V600 mutation occupies a relatively small but critical subset in colorectal cancer (CRC). However, little is known about the biological functions and impacts of BRAF class III mutation in CRC. Here, w...

    Authors: Wenjing Li, Chenyi Zhao, Wenhui Li, Yang Gong, Kaili Ma, Yujie Lu, Xiaowei Liu, Lianjun Zhang and Feng Guo
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:737
  27. Many methodologies for selecting histopathological images, such as sample image patches or segment histology from regions of interest (ROIs) or whole-slide images (WSIs), have been utilized to develop survival...

    Authors: Yan-Jun Li, Hsin-Hung Chou, Peng-Chan Lin, Meng-Ru Shen and Sun-Yuan Hsieh
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:731
  28. The effectiveness of immune checkpoint inhibitors in treating gallbladder cancer (GBC) remains unsatisfactory. Recently, several new immune checkpoints have been identified. However, investigations exploring t...

    Authors: Xing He, Yaorong Peng, Gui He, Huilin Ye, Liqiang Liu, Qixian Zhou, Juanyi Shi, Sha Fu, Jie Wang, Zhenyu Zhou and Wenbin Li
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:717

    The Correction to this article has been published in Journal of Translational Medicine 2024 22:118

  29. Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common malignant tumor. Fusobacterium nucleatum (F. nucleatum) is overabundant in CRC and associated with metastasis, but the role of F. nucleatum in CRC cell migration a...

    Authors: Suwen Ou, Haipeng Chen, Hufei Wang, Jinhua Ye, Huidi Liu, Yangbao Tao, Songlin Ran, Xiaoqin Mu, Fangzhou Liu, Shuang Zhu, Kangjia Luo, Zilong Guan, Yinghu Jin, Rui Huang, Yanni Song and Shu-lin Liu
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:704
  30. Non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) is known for its elevated recurrence rate, necessitating an enhancement in the current risk stratification for recurrence. The urine-based fluorescence in situ hybrid...

    Authors: Junjiong Zheng, Sihong Lu, Yi Huang, Xu Chen, Jie Zhang, Yuhui Yao, Jinhua Cai, Jieying Wu, Jianqiu Kong and Tianxin Lin
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:685
  31. Spinal cord glioma (SCG) is considered an orphan disease that lacks effective treatment options with margins that are surgically inaccessible and an overall paucity of literature on the topic. The tumor microe...

    Authors: Muhibullah S. Tora, Stewart G. Neill, Yuliya Lakhina, Hemza Assed, Michelle Zhang, Purva P. Nagarajan, Thais Federici, Juanmarco Gutierrez, Kimberly B. Hoang, Yuhong Du, Kecheng Lei and Nicholas M. Boulis
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:667
  32. Memory B cells and microRNAs (miRNAs) play important roles in the progression of gastric adenocarcinoma (GAC), also known as stomach adenocarcinoma (STAD). However, few studies have investigated the use of mem...

    Authors: Ruquan Liu, Biaojie Huang, Yongzhao Shao, Yongming Cai, Xi Liu and Zhonglu Ren
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:648
  33. Cervical cancer is one of the most common gynecological cancers threatening women’s health worldwide. Double-stranded RNA-binding proteins (dsRBPs) regulate innate immunity and are therefore believed to be inv...

    Authors: Jin Li, Chong Wan, Xiaoqi Li, Chenlian Quan, Xiaoqiu Li and Xiaohua Wu
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:647
  34. Despite immunotherapies having revolutionized the treatment of advanced cutaneous melanoma, effective and durable responses were only reported in a few patients. A better understanding of the interaction of me...

    Authors: Helene Schäfer, Karthikeyan Subbarayan, Chiara Massa, Christoforos Vaxevanis, Anja Mueller and Barbara Seliger
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:643
  35. Nowadays, the incidence rate of advanced and metastatic prostate cancer at the first time of diagnosis grows higher in China yearly. At present, androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) is the primary treatment of a...

    Authors: Ao Liu, Yi Gao, Qi Wang, Wenhao Lin, Zhiyang Ma, Xiaoqun Yang, Lu Chen and Danfeng Xu
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:641
  36. Anti-PD1/PDL1 immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) transformed the prognosis of patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). However, the response rate remains disappointing and toxicity may be lif...

    Authors: Alice Mogenet, Pascal Finetti, Emilie Denicolai, Laurent Greillier, Pascaline Boudou-Rouquette, François Goldwasser, Gwenael Lumet, Michele Ceccarelli, Daniel Birnbaum, Davide Bedognetti, Emilie Mamessier, Fabrice Barlesi, François Bertucci and Pascale Tomasini
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:637
  37. IFN-λ has been shown to have a dual function in cancer, with its tumor-suppressive roles being well-established. However, the potential existence of a negative ‘‘tumor-promoting’’ effect of endogenous IFN-λ is...

    Authors: Zhen Zhen Wang, Xiao Ling Wen, Na Wang, Xu Hua Li, Yu Guo, Xu Zhu, Shu Heng Fu, Fei Fan Xiong, Jin Li, Limei Wang, Xiao Ling Gao and Hong Jiu Wang
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:615
  38. Sialic acid-binding immunoglobulin-like lectin-15 (Siglec-15) has emerged as a novel immunotherapy candidate, which deserves a comprehensive investigation in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD).

    Authors: Baihui Li, Yan Guo, Yeran Yi, Ziqi Huang, Yulin Ren, Hao Wang and Lili Yang
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:599
  39. To gain deeper insights into the microenvironment of breast cancer, we utilized GeoMx Digital Spatial Profiling (DSP) technology to analyze transcripts from 107 regions of interest in 65 untreated breast cance...

    Authors: Guohong Liu, Liping Wang, Lili Ji, Dan He, Lihua Zeng, Guangzheng Zhuo, Qian Zhang, Dujuan Wang and Yunbao Pan
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:580
  40. Tumor invasiveness reflects numerous biological changes, including tumorigenesis, progression, and metastasis. To decipher the role of transcriptional regulators (TR) involved in tumor invasiveness, we perform...

    Authors: Mahesh Jethalia, Siddhi P. Jani, Michele Ceccarelli and Raghvendra Mall
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:558
  41. Opting for or against the administration of adjuvant chemotherapy in therapeutic management of stage II colon cancer remains challenging. Several studies report few survival benefits for patients treated with ...

    Authors: Katja Sallinger, Michael Gruber, Christin-Therese Müller, Lilli Bonstingl, Elisabeth Pritz, Karin Pankratz, Armin Gerger, Maria Anna Smolle, Ariane Aigelsreiter, Olga Surova, Jessica Svedlund, Mats Nilsson, Thomas Kroneis and Amin El-Heliebi
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:528
  42. Clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) is an immunologically and histologically diverse tumor. However, how the structural heterogeneity of tumor microenvironment (TME) affects cancer progression and treatmen...

    Authors: Dawei Zhang, Yuanli Ni, Yongquan Wang, Juan Feng, Na Zhuang, Jiatao Li, Limei Liu, Wenhao Shen, Ji Zheng, Wei Zheng, Cheng Qian, Juanjuan Shan and Zhansong Zhou
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:489
  43. The tumor-adipose microenvironment (TAME) is characterized by the enrichment of adipocytes, and is considered a special ecosystem that supports cancer progression. However, the heterogeneity and diversity of a...

    Authors: Si-Qing Liu, Ding-Yuan Chen, Bei Li, Zhi-Jie Gao, Hong-Fang Feng, Xin Yu, Zhou Liu, Yuan Wang, Wen-Ge Li, Si Sun, Sheng-Rong Sun and Qi Wu
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:470
  44. Non-invasive risk stratification contributes to the precise treatment of prostate cancer (PCa). In previous studies, lymphocyte subsets were used to differentiate between low-/intermediate-risk and high-risk P...

    Authors: Chunguang Yang, Zhenghao Liu, Yin Fang, Xinyu Cao, Guoping Xu, Zhihua Wang, Zhiquan Hu, Shaogang Wang and Xinglong Wu
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:465
  45. Nearly 80% of patients with pancreatic cancer suffer from glucose intolerance or diabetes. Pancreatic cancer complicated by diabetes has a more immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment (TME) and is associated ...

    Authors: Chenggang Gao, Jiaoshun Chen, Jianwei Bai, Haoxiang Zhang, Yanyi Tao, Shihong Wu, Hehe Li, Heshui Wu, Qiang Shen and Tao Yin
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:461
  46. Uterine clear cell carcinomas (CCC) represent less than 5% of uterine cancers. Their biological characteristics and clinical management remain uncertain. A multicenter study to explore both clinical and molecu...

    Authors: Elsa Nigon, Claudia Lefeuvre-Plesse, Alejandra Martinez, Céline Chauleur, Alain Lortholary, Laure Favier, Anne-Sophie Bats, Arnaud Guille, José AdélaÏde, Pascal Finetti, Victoire de Casteljac, Magali Provansal, Emilie Mamessier, François Bertucci, Isabelle Ray-Coquard and Renaud Sabatier
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:408
  47. The therapeutic targeting of the tumor microenvironment (TME) in colorectal cancer (CRC) has not yet been fully developed and utilized because of the complexity of the cell–cell interactions within the TME. Th...

    Authors: Zhiwei Peng, Zihao Ren, Zhiwei Tong, Yinan Zhu, Yansong Zhu and Kongwang Hu
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:405
  48. The relationship between intestinal microbiome and colorectal cancer (CRC) progression is unclear. This study aims to identify the intestinal microbiome associated with CRC progression and construct predictive...

    Authors: Jungang Liu, Xiaoliang Huang, Chuanbin Chen, Zhen Wang, Zigui Huang, Mingjian Qin, Fuhai He, Binzhe Tang, Chenyan Long, Hong Hu, Shuibo Pan, Junduan Wu and Weizhong Tang
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:373

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    1.458 - SNIP (Source Normalized Impact per Paper)
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    2023 Speed
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