Skip to main content

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

Page 2 of 10

  1. 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
  2. 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
  3. 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
  4. 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
  5. 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
  6. 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
  7. 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
  8. 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
  9. 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
  10. 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
  11. 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
  12. 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
  13. 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
  14. Spatial transcriptomics technologies developed in recent years can provide various information including tissue heterogeneity, which is fundamental in biological and medical research, and have been making sign...

    Authors: Jun Du, Yu-Chen Yang, Zhi-Jie An, Ming-Hui Zhang, Xue-Hang Fu, Zou-Fang Huang, Ye Yuan and Jian Hou
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:330
  15. In Lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD), targeted therapies and immunotherapies have moved from metastatic to early stage and stratification of the relapse risk becomes mandatory. Here we identified a miR-200 based RNA ...

    Authors: Simon Garinet, Audrey Didelot, Laetitia Marisa, Guillaume Beinse, Marine Sroussi, Françoise Le Pimpec-Barthes, Elizabeth Fabre, Laure Gibault, Pierre Laurent-Puig, Sophie Mouillet-Richard, Antoine Legras and Hélène Blons
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:324
  16. Anti-PD-(L)1 immunotherapy has been recommended for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients with lymph node metastases (LNM). However, the exact functional feature and spatial architecture of tumor-infiltr...

    Authors: Guanqun Yang, Siqi Cai, Mengyu Hu, Chaozhuo Li, Liying Yang, Wei Zhang, Jujie Sun, Fenghao Sun, Ligang Xing and Xiaorong Sun
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:320
  17. Infantile hemangioma (IH) is the most prevalent benign vascular tumor in infants, with distinct disease stages and durations. Despite the fact that the majority of IHs can regress spontaneously, a small percen...

    Authors: Meng Kong, Yanan Li, Kai Wang, Shisong Zhang and Yi Ji
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:308
  18. Although immunotherapy is effective in improving the clinical outcomes of patients with bladder cancer (BC), it is only effective in a small percentage of patients. Intercellular crosstalk in the tumor microen...

    Authors: Fei Long, Wei Wang, Shuo Li, Bicheng Wang, Xin Hu, Jun Wang, Yaqi Xu, Min Liu, Junting Zhou, Huaqi Si, Xiaodan Xi, Xiang-yu Meng, Chunhui Yuan and Fubing Wang
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:298
  19. A causal link between microbiota composition (dysbiosis) and oncogenesis has been demonstrated for several types of cancer. Neutrophils play a role in both immune protection against bacterial threats and carci...

    Authors: Natalia Rustetska, Magdalena Szczepaniak, Krzysztof Goryca, Elwira Bakuła-Zalewska, Małgorzata Figat, Artur Kowalik, Stanisław Góźdź and Magdalena Kowalewska
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:285
  20. Nonkeratinizing nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NK-NPC) has a strong association with Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection. The role of NK cells and the tumor cell evolutionary trajectory in NK-NPC remain unclear. In ...

    Authors: Cuimin Chen, Chun Wang, Ruifang Pang, Huanyu Liu, Weihua Yin, Jiakang Chen and Lili Tao
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:278
  21. Visium Spatial Gene Expression (ST) is a method combining histological spatial information with transcriptomics profiles directly from tissue sections. The use of spatial information has made it possible to di...

    Authors: Elyas Mohammadi, Katarzyna Chojnowska, Michał Bieńkowski, Anna Kostecka, Magdalena Koczkowska, Michał A. Żmijewski, Marcin Jąkalski, Martin Ingelsson, Natalia Filipowicz, Paweł Olszewski, Hanna Davies, Justyna M. Wierzbicka, Bradley T. Hyman, Jan P. Dumanski, Arkadiusz Piotrowski and Jakub Mieczkowski
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:270
  22. Extracellular vesicles (EVs) transport biologically active molecules, and represent a recently identified way of intercellular communication. Recent evidence has also reported that EVs shed by cancer stem cell...

    Authors: Hongying Zhao, Rongke Jiang, Chunmei Zhang, Zhijing Feng and Xue Wang
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:238
  23. The prognostic management of bladder cancer (BLCA) remains a great challenge for clinicians. Recently, bulk RNA-seq sequencing data have been used as a prognostic marker for many cancers but do not accurately ...

    Authors: Zhiyong Tan, Xiaorong Chen, Jieming Zuo, Shi Fu, Haifeng Wang and Jiansong Wang
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:223
  24. Neoadjuvant concurrent chemoradiotherapy (nCCRT) is a standard treatment for locally advanced rectal cancer (LARC). The gut microbiome may be reshaped by radiotherapy through its effects on microbial compositi...

    Authors: Yi Sun, Xiang Zhang, Chuandi Jin, Kaile Yue, Dashuang Sheng, Tao Zhang, Xue Dou, Jing Liu, Hongbiao Jing, Lei Zhang and Jinbo Yue
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:221
  25. Previous investigations of transcriptomic signatures of cancer patient survival and post-therapy relapse have focused on tumor tissue. In contrast, here we show that in colorectal cancer (CRC) transcriptomes d...

    Authors: Jinho Kim, Hyunjung Kim, Min-Seok Lee, Heetak Lee, Yeon Jeong Kim, Woo Yong Lee, Seong Hyeon Yun, Hee Cheol Kim, Hye Kyung Hong, Sridhar Hannenhalli, Yong Beom Cho, Donghyun Park and Sun Shim Choi
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:209

    The Correction to this article has been published in Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:304

  26. Prostate cancer is one of the most common cancers in men with notable interpatient heterogeneity. Implications of the immune microenvironment in predicting the biochemical recurrence-free survival (BCRFS) afte...

    Authors: Sujun Han, Taoping Shi, Yuchen Liao, Dong Chen, Feiya Yang, Mingshuai Wang, Jing Ma, Hu Li, Yu Xu, Tengfei Zhu, Wenxi Chen, Guoqiang Wang, Yusheng Han, Chunwei Xu, Wenxian Wang, Shangli Cai…
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:194
  27. Tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) are major component in the tumor microenvironment (TME) and play regulatory role in tumor progression. We aimed to investigate the infiltration and prognostic value of TAMs ...

    Authors: Yu Heng, Xiaoke Zhu, Hanqing Lin, Ma jingyu, Xuping Ding, Lei Tao and Liming Lu
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:167
  28. Cell–cell communications of various cell populations within tumor microenvironment play an essential role in primary tumor growth, metastasis evolution, and immune escape. Nevertheless, comprehensive investiga...

    Authors: Liu-xun Chen, Shen-jie Zeng, Xv-dong Liu, Hai-bin Tang, Jia-wu Wang and Qing Jiang
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:113
  29. The systemic immune-inflammation index (SII) is a novel biomarker to predict the prognosis of some malignant tumors based on neutrophil, platelet, and lymphocyte counts. Evidence is scarce about the prognostic...

    Authors: Linghao Meng, Yujia Yang, Xu Hu, Ruohan Zhang and Xiang Li
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:79
  30. Metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer remains a challenging condition to treat. Among the available therapeutic options, the androgen receptor signaling inhibitors abiraterone acetate plus prednisone...

    Authors: Pier Vitale Nuzzo, Filippo Pederzoli, Calogero Saieva, Elisa Zanardi, Giuseppe Fotia, Andrea Malgeri, Sabrina Rossetti, Loana Valenca Bueno, Livia Maria Q. S. Andrade, Anna Patrikidou, Ricardo Pereira Mestre, Mikol Modesti, Sandro Pignata, Giuseppe Procopio, Giuseppe Fornarini, Ugo De Giorgi…
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:75
  31. The correlation and difference in T-cell phenotypes between peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBLs) and the tumor immune microenvironment (TIME) in patients with gastric cancer (GC) is not clear. We aimed to chara...

    Authors: Jing Ma, Jianhui Li, Nan He, Meirui Qian, Yuanyuan Lu, Xin Wang and Kaichun Wu
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:73
  32. Enterococcus faecalis (Efa) has been shown to be a “driver bacteria” in the occurrence and development of colorectal cancer (CRC). This study aims to explore the effect of specific metabolites of Efa on CRC.

    Authors: Li Zhang, Jing Liu, Mingxia Deng, Xiangliu Chen, Lushun Jiang, Jiajie Zhang, Lisheng Tao, Wei Yu and Yunqing Qiu
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:72
  33. Somatic alterations in cancer cause dysregulation of signaling pathways that control cell-cycle progression, apoptosis, and cell growth. The effect of individual alterations in these pathways differs between i...

    Authors: Ines Simeone and Michele Ceccarelli
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:55
  34. Intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC) is a malignant disease characterized by onset occult, rapid progression, high relapse rate, and high mortality. However, data on how the tumor microenvironment (TME) regul...

    Authors: Shurui Zhou, Kege Yang, Shaojie Chen, Guoda Lian, Yuzhou Huang, Hanming Yao, Yue Zhao, Kaihong Huang, Dong Yin, Haoming Lin and Yaqing Li
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:43
  35. Current diagnosis tools for prostate cancer (PCa) such as serum PSA detection and prostate biopsy cannot distinguish dormant tumors from invasive malignancies, either be used as prognosis marker for castration...

    Authors: Pengyu Liu, Wenxuan Wang, Fei Wang, Jiaqi Fan, Jinan Guo, Tao Wu, Dongliang Lu, Qingchun Zhou, Zhuohao Liu, Yuliang Wang, Zhiqun Shang, Franky Leung Chan, Wei Yang, Xin Li, Shan-Chao Zhao, Qingyou Zheng…
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:40
  36. The contribution of common genetic variants to pre-cancer progression is understudied due to long follow-up time, rarity of poor outcomes and lack of available germline DNA collection. Alternatively, DNA from ...

    Authors: Daniela Nachmanson, Meghana Pagadala, Joseph Steward, Callie Cheung, Lauryn Keeler Bruce, Nicole Q. Lee, Thomas J. O’Keefe, Grace Y. Lin, Farnaz Hasteh, Gerald P. Morris, Hannah Carter and Olivier Harismendy
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2022 20:623
  37. Immune checkpoint blockades (ICBs) have emerged as a promising treatment for cancer. Recently, tumour mutational burden (TMB) and neoantigen load (NAL) have been proposed to be potential biomarkers to predict ...

    Authors: Jiayue Qiu, Xiangmei Li, Yalan He, Qian Wang, Ji Li, Jiashuo Wu, Ying Jiang and Junwei Han
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2022 20:613
  38. Low-grade serous ovarian cancer (LGSOC) is a rare disease that occurs more frequently in younger women than those with high-grade disease. The current treatment is suboptimal and a better understanding of the ...

    Authors: Kwong-Kwok Wong, Nicholas W. Bateman, Chun Wai Ng, Yvonne T. M. Tsang, Charlotte S. Sun, Joseph Celestino, Tri V. Nguyen, Anais Malpica, R. Tyler Hillman, Jianhua Zhang, P. Andrew Futreal, Christine Rojas, Kelly A. Conrads, Brian L. Hood, Clifton L. Dalgard, Matthew D. Wilkerson…
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2022 20:606
  39. Tumor histomorphology analysis plays a crucial role in predicting the prognosis of resectable lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD). Computer-extracted image texture features have been previously shown to be correlated w...

    Authors: Yumeng Wang, Xipeng Pan, Huan Lin, Chu Han, Yajun An, Bingjiang Qiu, Zhengyun Feng, Xiaomei Huang, Zeyan Xu, Zhenwei Shi, Xin Chen, Bingbing Li, Lixu Yan, Cheng Lu, Zhenhui Li, Yanfen Cui…
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2022 20:595
  40. Primary liver cancer (PLC) is a common gastrointestinal malignancy worldwide. While hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC) are two major pathologic types of PLC, combined HCC ...

    Authors: Ru-Chen Xu, Fu Wang, Jia-Lei Sun, Weinire Abuduwaili, Guang-Cong Zhang, Zhi-Yong Liu, Tao-Tao Liu, Ling Dong, Xi-Zhong Shen and Ji-Min Zhu
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2022 20:579
  41. Waldenström macroglobulinemia (WM) is a rare and incurable indolent B-cell malignancy. The molecular pathogenesis and the role of immunosuppressive microenvironment in WM development are still incompletely und...

    Authors: Hao Sun, Teng Fang, Tingyu Wang, Zhen Yu, Lixin Gong, Xiaojing Wei, Huijun Wang, Yi He, Lanting Liu, Yuting Yan, Weiwei Sui, Yan Xu, Shuhua Yi, Lugui Qiu and Mu Hao
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2022 20:576
  42. Little is known on the tumor microenvironment (TME) response after neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT) in gastric cancer on the molecular level.

    Authors: Yingtai Chen, Jianhua Yin, Lulu Zhao, Guangyu Zhou, Shichen Dong, Yueming Zhang, Penghui Niu, Hu Ren, Tianjiao Zheng, Juan Yan, Wenbin Li, Peiqin Ma, Cuijuan Zhang, Chen Wei, George Church, Guibo Li…
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2022 20:563
  43. Cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs), one of the major components of the tumor stroma, contribute to an immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment (TME) through the induction and functional polarization of protu...

    Authors: Katayoon Pakravan, Majid Mossahebi-Mohammadi, Mohammad H. Ghazimoradi, William C. Cho, Majid Sadeghizadeh and Sadegh Babashah
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2022 20:559
  44. Clear cell renal cell cancer (ccRCC) is accompanied by T-cell infiltration. In this study, we sought to determine the difference in T-cell infiltration and the T-cell receptor (TCR) immune repertoire between c...

    Authors: Wei Zhang, Qian Zhang, Chao Zhu, Zhiyuan Shi, Chen Shao, Yujie Chen, Nan Wang, Yanxia Jiang, Qing Liang and Kejia Wang
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2022 20:558
  45. In recent years, the biological role of changes in physical factors in carcinogenesis and progression has attracted increasing attention. Matrix stiffness, also known as ECM stress, is a critical physical fact...

    Authors: Boer Deng, Ziyi Zhao, Weimin Kong, Chao Han, Xiaochang Shen and Chunxiao Zhou
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2022 20:540
  46. The role of the inflammatory milieu in prostate cancer progression is not well understood. Differences in inflammatory signaling between localized and metastatic disease may point to opportunities for early in...

    Authors: Ida Deichaite, Timothy J. Sears, Leisa Sutton, Daniel Rebibo, Kylie Morgan, Tyler Nelson, Brent Rose, Pablo Tamayo, Napoleone Ferrara, Fotis Asimakopoulos and Hannah Carter
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2022 20:527
  47. Cellular compositions of solid tumor microenvironments are heterogeneous, varying across patients and tumor types. High-resolution profiling of the tumor microenvironment cell composition is crucial to underst...

    Authors: Ze Zhang, John K. Wiencke, Karl T. Kelsey, Devin C. Koestler, Brock C. Christensen and Lucas A. Salas
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2022 20:516

Annual Journal Metrics