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 5 of 9

  1. Clinical variables may correlate with lack of response to treatment (primary resistance) or clinical benefit in patients with clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) treated with anti-programmed death 1/ligand...

    Authors: Brian W. Labadie, Ping Liu, Riyue Bao, Michael Crist, Ricardo Fernandes, Laura Ferreira, Scott Graupner, Andrew S. Poklepovic, Ignacio Duran, Saman Maleki Vareki, Arjun V. Balar and Jason J. Luke
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2019 17:386
  2. Breast cancer is the most common malignancy in female patients worldwide. Because of its heterogeneity in terms of prognosis and therapeutic response, biomarkers with the potential to predict survival or assis...

    Authors: Xuanwen Bao, Natasa Anastasov, Yanfang Wang and Michael Rosemann
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2019 17:380
  3. The purification of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) by means of density gradient (1.07 g/mL) centrifugation is one of the most commonly used methods in diagnostics and research laboratories as well ...

    Authors: Luigi Coppola, Giovanni Smaldone, Alessandra Cianflone, Simona Baselice, Peppino Mirabelli and Marco Salvatore
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2019 17:371
  4. The purpose of the present work is to underline the importance of obtaining a standardized procedure to ensure and evaluate both clinical and research usability of human tissue samples. The study, which was ca...

    Authors: Margalida Esteva-Socias, María-Jesús Artiga, Olga Bahamonde, Oihana Belar, Raquel Bermudo, Erika Castro, Teresa Escámez, Máximo Fraga, Laura Jauregui-Mosquera, Isabel Novoa, Lorena Peiró-Chova, Juan-David Rejón, María Ruiz-Miró, Paula Vieiro-Balo, Virginia Villar-Campo, Sandra Zazo…
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2019 17:370
  5. Oxidized low density lipoprotein receptor 1 (OLR1), a type II membrane protein, has been identified as receptor for oxidized low-density lipoprotein. The current study firstly provided evidence that OLR1 regul...

    Authors: Long Jiang, Shanshan Jiang, Wenjie Zhou, Jia Huang, Yongbin Lin, Hao Long and Qingquan Luo
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2019 17:369
  6. Hypertension often presents with microvascular rarefaction (MVR), which is closely associated with impaired angiogenesis. Early detection of MVR is essential for systemic assessment in patient with hypertensio...

    Authors: Jianwen Liang, Yan Li, Long Chen, Wenhao Xia, Guifu Wu, Xinzhu Tong, Chen Su, Jiang He, Xiufang Lin and Jun Tao
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2019 17:368

    The Correction to this article has been published in Journal of Translational Medicine 2020 18:26

  7. Stem cell therapy is investigated as a treatment option for patients with ischemic heart disease. In this study, long-term safety and efficacy of autologous intra-myocardial injections of adipose-derived strom...

    Authors: Abbas Ali Qayyum, Anders Bruun Mathiasen, Steffen Helqvist, Erik Jørgensen, Mandana Haack-Sørensen, Annette Ekblond and Jens Kastrup
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2019 17:360
  8. Proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin 9 (PCSK9) has been proposed as a novel target for coronary artery disease (CAD). Familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) is characterized by high prevalence of CAD and major c...

    Authors: Ye-Xuan Cao, Jing-Lu Jin, Di Sun, Hui-Hui Liu, Yuan-Lin Guo, Na-Qiong Wu, Rui-Xia Xu, Cheng-Gang Zhu, Qian Dong, Jing Sun and Jian-Jun Li
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2019 17:367
  9. Acute kidney injury (AKI) has high morbidity and mortality in intensive care units (ICU). It can also lead to chronic kidney disease (CKD), more costs and longer hospital stay. Early identification of AKI is i...

    Authors: Qi Wang, Yi Tang, Jiaojiao Zhou and Wei Qin
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2019 17:359
  10. Pituitary adenoma and meningioma are the most common benign tumors in the central nervous system. Pituitary adenoma associated with meningioma (PAM) is a rare disease and the clinical features and mechanisms o...

    Authors: Haibo Zhu, Yazhou Miao, Yutao Shen, Jing Guo, Weiyan Xie, Sida Zhao, Wei Dong, Yazhuo Zhang and Chuzhong Li
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2019 17:354
  11. Accumulating evidence indicates that CD36 initiates metastasis and correlates with an unfavorable prognosis in cancers. However, there are few reports regarding the roles of CD36 in initiation and metastasis o...

    Authors: Min Deng, Xiaodong Cai, Ling Long, Linying Xie, Hongmei Ma, Youjian Zhou, Shuguang Liu and Chao Zeng
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2019 17:352
  12. Collagen is the major component of the tumor microenvironment and participates in cancer fibrosis. Collagen biosynthesis can be regulated by cancer cells through mutated genes, transcription factors, signaling...

    Authors: Shuaishuai Xu, Huaxiang Xu, Wenquan Wang, Shuo Li, Hao Li, Tianjiao Li, Wuhu Zhang, Xianjun Yu and Liang Liu
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2019 17:309
  13. The aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) is a well-known ligand-activated cytoplasmic transcription factor that contributes to cellular responses against environmental toxins and carcinogens. AhR is activated by a ...

    Authors: Hui Zhao, Lin Chen, Tian Yang, Ya-Long Feng, Nosratola D. Vaziri, Bao-Li Liu, Qing-Quan Liu, Yan Guo and Ying-Yong Zhao
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2019 17:302
  14. BRAF mutations occur in 2–4% non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients and can be categorized into three functional classes based on signaling mechanism and kinase activity: RAS-independent kinase-activating V6...

    Authors: Quan Lin, Haoran Zhang, Huaxin Ding, Jun Qian, Analyn Lizaso, Jing Lin, Han Han-Zhang, Jianxing Xiang, Yuping Li and Hong Zhu
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2019 17:298
  15. The scientific understanding of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) has improved in recent decades. Nevertheless, there has been little research into the role that lncRNAs play in clear cell renal cell carcinoma (c...

    Authors: Jiang-hui Zeng, Wei Lu, Liang Liang, Gang Chen, Hui-hua Lan, Xiu-Yun Liang and Xu Zhu
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2019 17:281
  16. Ovarian cancer is the leading cause of death in gynecological cancer. Cancer stem cells (CSCs) contribute to the occurrence, progression and resistance. Small nucleolar RNAs (SnoRNAs), a class of small molecul...

    Authors: Wenjing Zhu, Jumin Niu, Miao He, Liwen Zhang, Xuemei Lv, Fangxiao Liu, Longyang Jiang, Jing Zhang, Zhaojin Yu, Lin Zhao, Jia Bi, Yuanyuan Yan, Qian Wei, Hong Huo, Yue Fan, Yuzong Chen…
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2019 17:259
  17. Plexiform fibromyxoma (PF) is a rare gastric tumor often confused with gastrointestinal stromal tumor. These so-called “benign” tumors often present with upper GI bleeding and gastric outlet obstruction. It wa...

    Authors: Sudeep Banerjee, Christopher L. Corless, Markku M. Miettinen, Sangkyu Noh, Rowan Ustoy, Jessica L. Davis, Chih-Min Tang, Mayra Yebra, Adam M. Burgoyne and Jason K. Sicklick
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2019 17:246
  18. Bone metastases occur rarely in patients suffering from malignant melanoma, although their onset severely worsens both prognosis and quality of life. Extracellular vesicles (EVs) including exosomes (Exos) are ...

    Authors: Francesco Mannavola, Marco Tucci, Claudia Felici, Anna Passarelli, Stella D’Oronzo and Francesco Silvestris
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2019 17:230
  19. Immune infiltration may predict survival and have clinical significance in lung cancer. However, immune signatures derived from immune profiling based on bulk tumor transcriptomes have not been systematically ...

    Authors: Xiaodong Yang, Yu Shi, Ming Li, Tao Lu, Junjie Xi, Zongwu Lin, Wei Jiang, Weigang Guo, Cheng Zhan and Qun Wang
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2019 17:217
  20. New treatment options for metastasised high-grade serous carcinoma (HGSC) are urgently needed. HGSC frequently metastasises to the omentum, inducing angiogenesis in the local omental microvasculature to facili...

    Authors: Md Zahidul I. Pranjol, Dmitry A. Zinovkin, Annelie R. T. Maskell, Laura J. Stephens, Sergey L. Achinovich, Dmitry M. Los’, Eldar A. Nadyrov, Michael Hannemann, Nicholas J. Gutowski and Jacqueline L. Whatmore
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2019 17:216
  21. The human epidermal growth factor receptor (HER) family of transmembrane tyrosine kinases is overexpressed and correlates with poor prognosis and decreased survival in many cancers. The receptor family has bee...

    Authors: Sabrina A. Maisel, Derrick Broka, Benjamin Atwell, Thomas Bunch, Robert Kupp, Shiv K. Singh, Shwetal Mehta and Joyce Schroeder
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2019 17:201
  22. One main challenge in ovarian cancer rests on the presence of a relapse and an important metastatic disease, despite extensive surgical debulking and chemotherapy. The difficulty in containing metastatic cance...

    Authors: Jessica Hoarau-Véchot, Cyril Touboul, Najeeb Halabi, Morgane Blot-Dupin, Raphael Lis, Charbel Abi Khalil, Shahin Rafii, Arash Rafii and Jennifer Pasquier
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2019 17:194
  23. Tumors develop by progression through a series of stages. Every cell of the tumor microenvironment is constantly changing in the flow of the cancer progression. It has become clear in recent years that stroma ...

    Authors: F. Lessi, C. Scatena, P. Aretini, M. Menicagli, S. Franceschi, A. G. Naccarato and C. M. Mazzanti
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2019 17:187
  24. Glioblastomas have a high degree of malignancy, high recurrence rate, high mortality rate, and low cure rate. Searching for new markers of glioblastomas is of great significance for improving the diagnosis, pr...

    Authors: Siqi Wang, Fang Liu, Yuhui Wang, Wenliang Fan, Hongyang Zhao, Liying Liu, Chunyuan Cen, Xiaobin Jiang, Min Sun and Ping Han
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2019 17:179
  25. Kidney renal clear cell carcinoma (KIRC) is the most common type of kidney cancer in adults, and it is responsible for approximately 90–95% of cases. Although extensive evidence has suggested that many immune-...

    Authors: Enyang Zhao, Lihong Li, Wenfu Zhang, Wanhui Wang, Yunhui Chan, Bosen You and Xuedong Li
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2019 17:177
  26. Impairment of natural killer (NK) cell activity is an important mechanism of tumor immunoevasion. T cell immunoglobulin domain and mucin domain-3 (Tim-3) is an activation-induced inhibitory molecule, inducing ...

    Authors: Yujia Zheng, Yu Li, Jingyao Lian, Huiyun Yang, Feng Li, Song Zhao, Yu Qi, Yi Zhang and Lan Huang
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2019 17:165
  27. MicroRNA (miRNA) mediate post-transcriptional gene repression and are involved in a variety of human diseases, including cancer. Soft tissue sarcomas are rare malignancies with a variety of histological subtyp...

    Authors: Clara Benna, Senthilkumar Rajendran, Marco Rastrelli and Simone Mocellin
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2019 17:153
  28. Esophageal cancer is the sixth-leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are the main reason for tumor relapse in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). The NOTCH pathway i...

    Authors: Meysam Moghbeli, Hooman Mosannen Mozaffari, Bahram Memar, Mohammad Mahdi Forghanifard, Mehran Gholamin and Mohammad Reza Abbaszadegan
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2019 17:126
  29. Various proinflammatory cytokines can be detected within the melanoma tumor microenvironment. Interleukin 32 (IL32) is produced by T cells, NK cells and monocytes/macrophages, but also by a subset of melanoma ...

    Authors: Helicia Paz, Jennifer Tsoi, Anusha Kalbasi, Catherine S. Grasso, William H. McBride, Dörthe Schaue, Lisa H. Butterfield, Deena M. Maurer, Antoni Ribas, Thomas G. Graeber and James S. Economou
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2019 17:113
  30. Heparanase (HPSE) is an endo-beta-glucuronidase that degrades heparan sulfate (HS) chains on proteoglycans. The oligosaccharides generated by HPSE promote angiogenesis, tumor growth and metastasis. Heparanase-...

    Authors: Thérèse Rachell Theodoro, Leandro Luongo Matos, Renan Pelluzzi Cavalheiro, Giselle Zenker Justo, Helena Bonciani Nader and Maria Aparecida Silva Pinhal
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2019 17:103
  31. Identifying intestinal node-negative gastric adenocarcinoma (INGA) patients with high risk of recurrence could help perceive benefit of adjuvant therapy for INGA patients following surgical resection. This stu...

    Authors: Meng-Yao Ji, Lei Yuan, Xiao-Da Jiang, Zhi Zeng, Na Zhan, Ping-Xiao Huang, Cheng Lu and Wei-Guo Dong
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2019 17:92
  32. Hypercoagulation and neutrophilia are described in several cancers, however, whether they are involved in lung carcinogenesis is currently unknown. Emodin is the main bioactive component from Rheum palmatum an...

    Authors: Zibo Li, Yukun Lin, Shuhui Zhang, Lin Zhou, Guixi Yan, Yuehua Wang, Mengdi Zhang, Mengqi Wang, Haihong Lin, Qiaozhen Tong, Yongjian Duan and Gangjun Du
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2019 17:90
  33. Covalent RNA modifications, such as N-6-methyladenosine (m6A), have been associated with various biological processes, but their role in cancer remains largely unexplored. m6A dynamics depends on specific enzymes...

    Authors: João Lobo, Ana Laura Costa, Mariana Cantante, Rita Guimarães, Paula Lopes, Luís Antunes, Isaac Braga, Jorge Oliveira, Mattia Pelizzola, Rui Henrique and Carmen Jerónimo
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2019 17:79
  34. A hallmark of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma is the desmoplastic reaction, but its impact on the tumor behavior remains controversial. Our aim was to introduce a computer -aided method to precisely quantify ...

    Authors: Fabio Grizzi, Sirio Fiorino, Dorina Qehajaj, Adele Fornelli, Carlo Russo, Dario de Biase, Michele Masetti, Laura Mastrangelo, Matteo Zanello, Raffaele Lombardi, Andrea Domanico, Esterita Accogli, Andrea Tura, Leonardo Mirandola, Maurizio Chiriva-Internati, Robert S. Bresalier…
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2019 17:61
  35. Osteosarcoma (OS) is the most common cancer of bone. Jaw osteosarcoma (JOS) is rare and it differs from other OS in terms of the time of occurrence (two decades later) and better survival. The aim of our work ...

    Authors: Hélios Bertin, Romain Guilho, Régis Brion, Jérôme Amiaud, Séverine Battaglia, Anne Moreau, Anne Brouchet-Gomez, Julie Longis, Benoit Piot, Dominique Heymann, Pierre Corre and Françoise Rédini
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2019 17:56
  36. The altered concentrations of amino acids were found in the bone marrow or blood of leukemia patients. Metabolomics technology combining mathematical model of biomarkers could be used for assisting the diagnos...

    Authors: Zhidai Liu, Tingting Zhou, Xing Han, Tingyuan Lang, Shan Liu, Penghui Zhang, Haiyan Liu, Kexing Wan, Jie Yu, Liang Zhang, Liyan Chen, Roger W. Beuerman, Bin Peng, Lei Zhou and Lin Zou
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2019 17:38
  37. Melanoma cells develop adaptive responses in order to cope with particular conditions of tumor microenvironment, characterized by stress conditions and deregulated proliferation. Recently, the interplay betwee...

    Authors: Immacolata Maida, Paola Zanna, Stefania Guida, Anna Ferretta, Tiziana Cocco, Luigi Leonardo Palese, Paola Londei, Dario Benelli, Amalia Azzariti, Stefania Tommasi, Michele Guida, Giovanni Pellacani and Gabriella Guida
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2019 17:20
  38. The immune tumor microenvironment (iTME) is thought to affect the response to chemotherapy, and tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) are often used as an indicator to evaluate the iTME. Smoking is involved in...

    Authors: Koji Takada, Shinichiro Kashiwagi, Yuka Asano, Wataru Goto, Katsuyuki Takahashi, Hisakazu Fujita, Tsutomu Takashima, Shuhei Tomita, Kosei Hirakawa and Masaichi Ohira
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2019 17:13
  39. The triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) paradox marks a major challenge in the treatment-decision making process. TNBC patients generally respond better to neoadjuvant chemotherapy compared to other breast ca...

    Authors: Ghaneya Al-Khadairi, Adviti Naik, Remy Thomas, Boshra Al-Sulaiti, Shaheen Rizly and Julie Decock
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2019 17:9
  40. Previously, we have demonstrated that Interleukin 13 receptor alpha 2 (IL-13Rα2) is overexpressed in approximate 78% Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) samples. We have also demonstrated that IL-13Rα2 can serve as ...

    Authors: Rukmini Bhardwaj, Akiko Suzuki, Pamela Leland, Bharat H. Joshi and Raj K. Puri
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2018 16:369
  41. Deregulated inflammation and immune deficit both intricately associate with cancer initiation and progression, which have been increasingly exploited as prognostic biomarkers and therapeutic targets. Recently,...

    Authors: Pengfei Diao, Yaping Wu, Jin Li, Wei Zhang, Rong Huang, Chen Zhou, Yanling Wang and Jie Cheng
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2018 16:365
  42. Because patient-derived xenografts (PDXs) are grown in immunodeficient mouse strains, PDXs are regarded as lacking an immune microenvironment. However, whether patients’ immune cells co-exist in PDXs remains u...

    Authors: Xingxiang Pu, Ran Zhang, Li Wang, Yungchang Chen, Yi Xu, Apar Pataer, Ismail M. Meraz, Xiaoshan Zhang, Shuhong Wu, Lin Wu, Dan Su, Weimin Mao, John V. Heymach, Jack A. Roth, Stephen G. Swisher and Bingliang Fang
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2018 16:328
  43. Incomplete thermal ablation may induce invasiveness of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Here, we investigated whether activated hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) would accelerate the progression of residual HCC aft...

    Authors: Rui Zhang, Xia-Hui Lin, Min Ma, Jie Chen, Jun Chen, Dong-Mei Gao, Jie-Feng Cui and Rong-Xin Chen
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2018 16:302
  44. Hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) plays a pivotal role in breast cancer cell motility, invasion and angiogenesis. These pro-metastatic events are triggered through HGF coupling and activation of the c-Met recepto...

    Authors: Christian Parr and Ahmed Y. Ali
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2018 16:281
  45. The mainstay of treatment of advanced ovarian cancer (AOC) involves chemotherapy, and debulking surgery. However, despite optimal surgical procedure and adjuvant chemotherapy, 60% of patients with AOC will rel...

    Authors: Jennifer Pasquier, Fabien Vidal, Jessica Hoarau-Véchot, Claire Bonneau, Emile Daraï, Cyril Touboul and Arash Rafii
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2018 16:271
  46. Approximately half of the documented increases in differentiated thyroid carcinoma is due to identification of papillary thyroid microcarcinomas (PTMCs). Knowing whether PTMC is aggressive is required for prop...

    Authors: Jianlu Song, Shouxin Wu, Xiaotian Xia, Yu Wang, Youben Fan and Zhili Yang
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2018 16:269
  47. The American Joint Committee on Cancer has recently revised the tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) staging system on thyroid cancer, which illustrated that the cut-off age for predicting mortality has elevated from 4...

    Authors: Weiheng Wen, Peili Wu, Jitong Li, He Wang, Jia Sun and Hong Chen
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2018 16:261
  48. Hyaluronan (HA), a major component of the extracellular matrix, has been proven to play a crucial role in tumor progression. However, it remains unknown whether HA exerts any effects in myelodysplastic syndrom...

    Authors: Cheng-Ming Fei, Juan Guo, You-Shan Zhao, Si-Da Zhao, Qing-Qing Zhen, Lei Shi, Xiao Li and Chun-Kang Chang
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2018 16:234

Annual Journal Metrics

  • 2022 Citation Impact
    7.4 - 2-year Impact Factor
    6.9 - 5-year Impact Factor
    1.458 - SNIP (Source Normalized Impact per Paper)
    1.544 - SJR (SCImago Journal Rank)

    2022 Speed
    10 days submission to first editorial decision for all manuscripts (Median)
    84 days submission to accept (Median)

    2022 Usage 
    4,243,080 downloads
    32,614 Altmetric mentions