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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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  2. Growing attention have been paid to the relationship between TP53 and tumor immunophenotype, but there are still lacking enough search on the field of gastric cancer (GC).

    Authors: Junyu Huo, Liqun Wu and Yunjin Zang
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2021 19:183
    Content type: Research Published on:

  3. Patient-derived xenografts established from human cancers are important tools for investigating novel anti-cancer therapies. Establishing PDXs requires a significant investment and many PDXs may be used infreq...

    Authors: Lindsey Abel, Arda Durmaz, Rong Hu, Colin Longhurst, Andrew M. Baschnagel, Deric Wheeler, Jacob G. Scott and Randall J. Kimple
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2021 19:180
    Content type: Research Published on:

  4. As part of the 2020 Immunotherapy Bridge virtual congress (December 2nd–3rd, Italy), the Great Debate session featured counterpoint views from leading experts on three clinical questions in immunotherapy today...

    Authors: Paolo A. Ascierto, Joshua Brody, Lisa H. Butterfield, Olivera J. Finn, John Goldberg, Francesco Perrone, Ryan J. Sullivan, Bernard A. Fox, Patrick Hwu and Igor Puzanov
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2021 19:144
    Content type: Meeting report Published on:

  5. Tumor invasiveness reflects many biological changes associated with tumorigenesis, progression, metastasis, and drug resistance. Therefore, we performed a systematic assessment of invasiveness-related molecula...

    Authors: Guoshu Bi, Jiaqi Liang, Yuansheng Zheng, Runmei Li, Mengnan Zhao, Yiwei Huang, Cheng Zhan, Songtao Xu and Hong Fan
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2021 19:124
    Content type: Research Published on:

  6. Glioma, the most common primary brain tumor, account Preparing figures for 30 to 40% of all intracranial tumors. Herein, we aimed to study the effects of M2 macrophage-derived exosomal microRNAs (miRNAs) on gl...

    Authors: Jie Yao, Zefen Wang, Yong Cheng, Chao Ma, Yahua Zhong, Yilei Xiao, Xu Gao and Zhiqiang Li
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2021 19:99
    Content type: Research Published on:

    The Correction to this article has been published in Journal of Translational Medicine 2021 19:263

  7. Adult granulosa cell tumor (aGCT) is a rare type of stromal cell malignant cancer of the ovary characterized by elevated estrogen levels. aGCTs ubiquitously harbor a somatic mutation in FOXL2 gene, Cys134Trp (c.4...

    Authors: Christian Secchi, Paola Benaglio, Francesca Mulas, Martina Belli, Dwayne Stupack and Shunichi Shimasaki
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2021 19:90
    Content type: Research Published on:

  8. Tumor mutation burden (TMB) has been associated with melanoma immunotherapy (IT) outcomes, including survival. We explored whether combining TMB with immunogenomic signatures recently identified by The Cancer ...

    Authors: Leah Morales, Danny Simpson, Robert Ferguson, John Cadley, Eduardo Esteva, Kelsey Monson, Vylyny Chat, Carlos Martinez, Jeffrey Weber, Iman Osman and Tomas Kirchhoff
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2021 19:78
    Content type: Research Published on:

    The Correction to this article has been published in Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:234

  9. One of the most prevalent causes of fetal hypoxia leading to stillbirth is placental insufficiency. Hemodynamic changes evaluated with Doppler ultrasound have been used as a surrogate marker of fetal hypoxia. ...

    Authors: Laura Pla, Sergio Berdún, Mònica Mir, Lourders Rivas, Sandrine Miserere, Samuel Dulay, Josep Samitier, Elisenda Eixarch, Miriam Illa and Eduard Gratacós
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2021 19:53
    Content type: Research Published on:

    The Letter to the Editor to this article has been published in Journal of Translational Medicine 2021 19:252

  10. Current diagnostic blood tests for prostate cancer (PCa) are unreliable for the early stage disease, resulting in numerous unnecessary prostate biopsies in men with benign disease and false reassurance of nega...

    Authors: Heba Alshaker, Robert Mills, Ewan Hunter, Matthew Salter, Aroul Ramadass, Benjamin Matthew Skinner, Willem Westra, Jayne Green, Alexandre Akoulitchev, Mathias Winkler and Dmitri Pchejetski
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2021 19:46
    Content type: Research Published on:

  12. KRAS gene is the most common type of mutation reported in colorectal cancer (CRC). KRAS mutation-mediated regulation of immunophenotype and immune pathways in CRC remains to be elucidated.

    Authors: Jungang Liu, Xiaoliang Huang, Haizhou Liu, Chunyin Wei, Haiming Ru, Haiquan Qin, Hao Lai, Yongsheng Meng, Guo Wu, Weishun Xie, Xianwei Mo, Caroline H. Johnson, Yawei Zhang and Weizhong Tang
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2021 19:27
    Content type: Research Published on:

  13. Metastatic breast cancer (mBC) is a complex and life-threatening disease and although it is difficult to cure, patients can benefit from sequential anticancer treatment, including endocrine therapy, targeted t...

    Authors: Seongyeong Kim, Dongjin Shin, Ahrum Min, Minjung Kim, Deukchae Na, Han-Byeol Lee, Han Suk Ryu, Yaewon Yang, Go-Un Woo, Kyung-Hun Lee, Dae-Won Lee, Tae-Yong Kim, Charles Lee, Seock-Ah Im and Jong-Il Kim
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2021 19:7
    Content type: Research Published on:

  14. Mammary carcinogenesis is partly regulated by the transforming growth factor beta (TGFβ) signaling pathway. Its function in cancer progression and metastasis is highly dependent on disease stage, and it is lik...

    Authors: Lovorka Grgurevic, Ruder Novak, Vladimir Trkulja, Stela Hrkac, Grgur Salai, Josko Bilandzic, Lejla Ferhatovic Hamzic, Ivan Milas, Tiha Vucemilo, Melita Peric Balja and Karmen Bilic
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2020 18:478
    Content type: Research Published on:

  15. Interleukin-33 (IL-33) is an effective inducer of pro-inflammatory cytokines regulating innate and adaptive immunity. Inflammation could be a double-edged sword, promoting or inhibiting tumour growth. To date,...

    Authors: Wenxiu Wang, Jun Wu, Mei Ji and Changping Wu
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2020 18:477
    Content type: Research Published on:

  16. The outcomes of immune checkpoint inhibitors in cancer patients with liver metastases are poor, which may be related to a different tumor microenvironment in liver metastases from primary tumors. This study wa...

    Authors: Xiao-Li Wei, Xuan Luo, Hui Sheng, Yun Wang, Dong-Liang Chen, Jia-Ning Li, Feng-Hua Wang and Rui-Hua Xu
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2020 18:475
    Content type: Research Published on:

  17. The solid tumor microenvironment possesses a hypoxic condition, which promotes aggressiveness and resistance to therapies. Hypoxic tumor cells undergo broadly metabolic and molecular adaptations and communicat...

    Authors: Reza Jafari, Reza Rahbarghazi, Mahdi Ahmadi, Mehdi Hassanpour and Jafar Rezaie
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2020 18:474
    Content type: Review Published on:

  18. Heparanase is the only mammalian enzyme that cleaves heparan sulphate, an important component of the extracellular matrix. This leads to the remodelling of the extracellular matrix, whilst liberating growth fa...

    Authors: Krishnath M. Jayatilleke and Mark D. Hulett
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2020 18:453
    Content type: Review Published on:

  19. The tumor microenvironment (TME) is a critical player in tumor progression, metastasis and therapy outcomes. Tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) are a well-recognized core element of the TME and generally char...

    Authors: Ilseon Hwang, Jeong Won Kim, Kris Ylaya, Eun Joo Chung, Haruhisa Kitano, Candice Perry, Jun Hanaoka, Junya Fukuoka, Joon-Yong Chung and Stephen M. Hewitt
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2020 18:443
    Content type: Research Published on:

  20. Breast cancer is a highly heterogeneous disease, this poses challenges for classification and management. Long non-coding RNAs play acrucial role in the breast cancersdevelopment and progression, especially in...

    Authors: Wei Ma, Fangkun Zhao, Xinmiao Yu, Shu Guan, Huandan Suo, Zuo Tao, Yue Qiu, Yunfei Wu, Yu Cao and Feng Jin
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2020 18:442
    Content type: Research Published on:

  21. Poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase inhibitors (PARPis) specifically target homologous recombination deficiency (HRD) cells and display good therapeutic effect in women with advanced-stage BRCA1/2-mutated breast and e...

    Authors: Razan Sheta, Magdalena Bachvarova, Marie Plante, Marie-Claude Renaud, Alexandra Sebastianelli, Jean Gregoire, Jamilet Miranda Navarro, Ricardo Bringas Perez, Jean-Yves Masson and Dimcho Bachvarov
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2020 18:439
    Content type: Research Published on:

  22. Accumulating evidence has demonstrated that immune-related lncRNAs (IRLs) are commonly aberrantly expressed in breast cancer (BC). Thus, we aimed to establish an IRL-based tool to improve prognosis prediction ...

    Authors: Jianguo Lai, Bo Chen, Guochun Zhang, Xuerui Li, Hsiaopei Mok and Ning Liao
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2020 18:416
    Content type: Research Published on:

  23. Cancer Associated Macrophage-Like cells (CAMLs) are polynucleated circulating stromal cells found in the bloodstream of numerous solid-tumor malignancies. Variations within CAML size have been associated with ...

    Authors: Daniel J. Gironda, Daniel L. Adams, Jianzhong He, Ting Xu, Hui Gao, Yawei Qiao, Ritsuko Komaki, James M. Reuben, Zhongxing Liao, Mariela Blum-Murphy, Wayne L. Hofstetter, Cha-Mei Tang and Steven H. Lin
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2020 18:413
    Content type: Research Published on:

  24. Methyltransferase-like 3 (METTL3) is a member of the m6A methyltransferase family and acts as an oncogene in cancers. Recent studies suggest that host innate immunity is regulated by the enzymes controlling m6A e...

    Authors: Huan-he Ni, Lin Zhang, He Huang, Shu-qin Dai and Jiang Li
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2020 18:393
    Content type: Research Published on:

  25. The non-classical human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-G is a strong immunomodulatory molecule. Under physiological conditions, HLA-G induces immunological tolerance in immune privileged tissues, while under pathophy...

    Authors: Michael Friedrich, Christine Stoehr, Simon Jasinski-Bergner, Arndt Hartmann, Sven Wach, Bernd Wullich, André Steven and Barbara Seliger
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2020 18:371
    Content type: Research Published on:

  26. Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are crucial to the malignant behaviour and poor prognosis of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). In recent years, CSC biology has been widely studied, but practical prognostic sig...

    Authors: Zengyu Feng, Minmin Shi, Kexian Li, Yang Ma, Lingxi Jiang, Hao Chen and Chenghong Peng
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2020 18:360
    Content type: Research Published on:

  27. Epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) is the most lethal disease among female genital malignant tumors. Peptidylarginine deiminase type II(PADI II) has been shown to enhance a variety of cancers carcinogenesis, incl...

    Authors: Lidong Liu, Zhiwei Zhang, Guoxiang Zhang, Ting Wang, Yingchun Ma and Wei Guo
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2020 18:357
    Content type: Research Published on:

  28. Distal cholangiocarcinoma is an aggressive malignancy with a dismal prognosis. Diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers for distal cholangiocarcinoma are lacking. The aim of the present study was to identify diffe...

    Authors: Johannes Byrling, Theresa Kristl, Dingyuan Hu, Indira Pla, Aniel Sanchez, Agata Sasor, Roland Andersson, György Marko-Varga and Bodil Andersson
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2020 18:343
    Content type: Research Published on:

  29. Hypoxia plays an indispensable role in the development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, there are few studies on the application of hypoxia molecules in the prognosis predicting of HCC. We aim to id...

    Authors: Baohui Zhang, Bufu Tang, Jianyao Gao, Jiatong Li, Lingming Kong and Ling Qin
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2020 18:342
    Content type: Research Published on:

  30. Malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) is an aggressive neoplasm of the pleura, mainly related to asbestos exposure. As in other solid tumors, malignant cells exhibit high glucose uptake and glycolytic rates wit...

    Authors: Irene Dell’Anno, Elisa Barone, Luciano Mutti, Doris M. Rassl, Stefan J. Marciniak, Roberto Silvestri, Stefano Landi and Federica Gemignani
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2020 18:341
    Content type: Research Published on:

  31. Duodenal adenocarcinoma (DA) is a rare yet aggressive malignancy, with increasing incidence in the last decades. Its low frequency has hampered a thorough understanding of the pathogenesis of the disease and o...

    Authors: G. Donisi, G. Capretti, N. Cortese, A. Rigamonti, F. Gavazzi, G. Nappo, A. Pulvirenti, M. Sollai, P. Spaggiari, A. Zerbi and F. Marchesi
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2020 18:340
    Content type: Research Published on:

  32. Immune-related genes (IRGs) have been confirmed to have an important role in tumorigenesis and tumor microenvironment formation. Nevertheless, a systematic analysis of IRGs and their clinical significance in s...

    Authors: Chuan Hu, Bo Chen, Zhangheng Huang, Chuan Liu, Lin Ye, Cailin Wang, Yuexin Tong, Jiaxin Yang and Chengliang Zhao
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2020 18:337
    Content type: Research Published on:

  33. African American women experience a twofold higher incidence of triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) and are 40% more likely to die from breast cancer than women of other ethnicities. However, the molecular ba...

    Authors: Xuan Yang, Mohamed Amgad, Lee A. D. Cooper, Yuhong Du, Haian Fu and Andrey A. Ivanov
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2020 18:334
    Content type: Research Published on:

  34. Recently, it has been reported that miRNA is involved in pterygium, however the exact underlying mechanism in pterygium is unrevealed and require further investigation.

    Authors: Siying He, Yifang Huang, Shiqi Dong, Chen Qiao, Guohua Yang, Shuai Zhang, Chen Wang, Yuting Xu, Fang Zheng and Ming Yan
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2020 18:332
    Content type: Research Published on:

  37. Colon cancer is a disease with high malignancy and incidence in the world. Tumor immune microenvironment (TIM) and tumor mutational burden (TMB) have been proved to play crucial roles in predicting clinical ou...

    Authors: Xinyi Wang, Jinzhong Duanmu, Xiaorui Fu, Taiyuan Li and Qunguang Jiang
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2020 18:324
    Content type: Research Published on:

  38. Treatment of human lung squamous cell carcinoma (LUSC) using current targeted therapies is limited because of their diverse somatic mutations without any specific dominant driver mutations. These mutational di...

    Authors: Hae-Yun Jung, Tae Ho Kim, Jong-Eun Lee, Hong Kwan Kim, Jong Ho Cho, Yong Soo Choi, Sumin Shin, Se-Hoon Lee, Hwanseok Rhee, Hee Kyung Lee, Hyun Jung Choi, Hye Yoon Jang, Seungjae Lee, Jung Hee Kang, Young Ae Choi, Sanghyuk Lee…
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2020 18:307
    Content type: Research Published on:

  39. Immunotherapies targeting glioblastoma (GBM) have led to significant improvements in patient outcomes. TOX is closely associated with the immune environment surrounding tumors, but its role in gliomas is not f...

    Authors: Hao Zhang, Fan Fan, Yuanqiang Yu, Zeyu Wang, Fangkun Liu, Ziyu Dai, Liyang Zhang, Zhixiong Liu and Quan Cheng
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2020 18:305
    Content type: Research Published on:

    The Correction to this article has been published in Journal of Translational Medicine 2020 18:368

  40. Bladder cancer (BlCa) taxonomy has proved its impact in patient outcome and selection for targeted therapies, but such transcriptomic-based classification has not yet translated to routine practice. Moreover, ...

    Authors: João Lobo, Sara Monteiro-Reis, Catarina Guimarães-Teixeira, Paula Lopes, Isa Carneiro, Carmen Jerónimo and Rui Henrique
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2020 18:303
    Content type: Research Published on:

  41. The tumor immune microenvironment is a heterogeneous entity. Gene expression analysis allows us to perform comprehensive immunoprofiling and may assist in dissecting the different components of the immune infi...

    Authors: W. S. M. E. Theelen, O. Krijgsman, K. Monkhorst, T. Kuilman, D. D. G. C. Peters, S. Cornelissen, M. A. Ligtenberg, S. M. Willems, J. L. G. Blaauwgeers, C. J. M. van Noesel, D. S. Peeper, M. M. van den Heuvel and K. Schulze
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2020 18:271
    Content type: Research Published on:

  42. Few studies have delved into the prevalence of distant metastasis (DM +) and survival for patients with lymph node metastases (LN +) by primary site. We aimed to detect differences in distant metastasis and pr...

    Authors: Xin Lou, Jun Li, Ya-Qing Wei, Zhi-Jia Jiang, Ming Chen and Jin-Jin Sun
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2020 18:266
    Content type: Research Published on:

  43. Patient-derived xenograft (PDX) mouse models of cancer have been recognized as better mouse models that recapitulate the characteristics of original malignancies including preserved tumor heterogeneity, lineag...

    Authors: Zhenyang Liu, Michael Ho-Young Ahn, Tomohiro Kurokawa, Amy Ly, Gong Zhang, Fuyou Wang, Teppei Yamada, Ananthan Sadagopan, Jane Cheng, Cristina R. Ferrone, Andrew S. Liss, Kim C. Honselmann, Gregory R. Wojtkiewicz, Soldano Ferrone and Xinhui Wang
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2020 18:255
    Content type: Research Published on:

  45. Although oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OPSCC) with human papillomavirus (HPV) infection has a good prognosis, the accurate prediction of survival and risk of treatment failure is essential to design d...

    Authors: Soohyeon Kwon, Soon-Hyun Ahn, Woo-Jin Jeong, Young Ho Jung, Yun Jung Bae, Jin Ho Paik, Jin-Haeng Chung and Hyojin Kim
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2020 18:240
    Content type: Research Published on:

  46. Cancer-related mortality in patients with colorectal cancer (CRC) is predominantly caused by development of colorectal liver metastases (CLMs). How to screen the sensitive chemotherapy and targeted therapy is ...

    Authors: Mi Jian, Li Ren, Guodong He, Qi Lin, Wentao Tang, Yijiao Chen, Jingwen Chen, Tianyu Liu, Meiling Ji, Ye Wei, Wenju Chang and Jianmin Xu
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2020 18:234
    Content type: Research Published on:

  47. As a nucleolar protein associated with ribosome biogenesis, pescadillo homolog 1 (PES1) has been reported to participate in the development of many cancers. However, its role in prostate cancer is not clearly ...

    Authors: Zhenming Jiang, Yuxi Zhang, Xi Chen, Yan Wang, Pingeng Wu, Chengzhang Wu and Dong Chen
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2020 18:209
    Content type: Research Published on:

  48. Patients with metastatic uveal melanoma (MUM) in the liver usually die within 1 year. The development of new treatments for MUM has been limited by the lack of diverse MUM cell lines and appropriate animal mod...

    Authors: Takahito Sugase, Bao Q. Lam, Meggie Danielson, Mizue Terai, Andrew E. Aplin, J. Silvio Gutkind and Takami Sato
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2020 18:208
    Content type: Research Published on:

  49. Most tumors develop abnormal fibrotic regions consisting of fibroblasts, immune cells, and a dense extracellular matrix (ECM) immersed in a viscous interstitial fluid, and an abundant fibrotic tumor microenvir...

    Authors: Anette Hauge and Einar K. Rofstad
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2020 18:207
    Content type: Review Published on:

  50. Increasing evidences have found that the clinical importance of the interaction between hypoxia and immune status in gastric cancer microenvironment. However, reliable prognostic signatures based on combinatio...

    Authors: Yifan Liu, Jianhua Wu, Weiwei Huang, Shaowen Weng, Baochun Wang, Yiming Chen and Hao Wang
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2020 18:201
    Content type: Research Published on:
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