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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. Dinaciclib, a small-molecule, cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor, inhibits cell cycle progression and proliferation in various tumor cell lines in vitro. We conducted an open-label, dose-escalation study to det...

    Authors: John J Nemunaitis, Karen A Small, Paul Kirschmeier, Da Zhang, Yali Zhu, Ying-Ming Jou, Paul Statkevich, Siu-Long Yao and Rajat Bannerji
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2013 11:259
  2. Up to 40% of patients initially diagnosed with clinically-confined renal cell carcinoma (RCC) and who undergo curative surgery will nevertheless relapse with metastatic disease (mRCC) associated with poor long...

    Authors: Lee Campbell, Ghaith Al-Jayyoussi, Robert Gutteridge, Nigel Gumbleton, Rosie Griffiths, Simon Gumbleton, Mathew W Smith, David FR Griffiths and Mark Gumbleton
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2013 11:255
  3. The chemokine CXCL12 and its receptor CXCR4 play a major role in tumor invasion, proliferation and metastasis in different malignant diseases, including esophageal carcinoma, amongst others. CXCR7 was recently...

    Authors: Michael Tachezy, Hilke Zander, Florian Gebauer, Katharina von Loga, Klaus Pantel, Jakob R Izbicki and Maximilian Bockhorn
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2013 11:238
  4. Oct4 is a major transcription factor related to stem cell self-renewal and differentiation. To fulfill its functions, it must be able to enter the nucleus and remain there to affect transcription. KPNA2, a mem...

    Authors: Xiao-Lei Li, Lan-Ling Jia, Mu-Mu Shi, Xin Li, Zhong-Hua Li, Hui-Feng Li, En-Hua Wang and Xin-Shan Jia
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2013 11:232
  5. Special AT rich sequence binding protein 1 (SATB1) plays a crucial role in the biology of various types of human cancer. However, the role of SATB1 in human nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) remains unknown. In t...

    Authors: Zhihua Shen, Yumei Zeng, Junli Guo, Yanxia Wu, Xiaofan Jiang, Ranran Ding, Changli Wu, Rujia Li, Botao Luo, Chao Zeng, Hanguo Jiang and Wei Jie
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2013 11:217
  6. Recent studies have indicated that the expression of endothelin A receptor (ETAR) and chemokine receptor 4 (CXCR4) could be used as an indicator of the metastatic potential of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). T...

    Authors: Dong-Hua Luo, Qiu-Yan Chen, Huai Liu, Li-Hua Xu, Hui-Zhong Zhang, Lu Zhang, Lin-Quan Tang, Hao-Yuan Mo, Pei-Yu Huang, Xiang Guo and Hai-Qiang Mai
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2013 11:203
  7. Chronic inflammation has been recognized to foster tumour development. Whether chemotherapy can be used to neutralize chronic inflammation is unclear.

    Authors: Andreas Carus, Howard Gurney, Val Gebski, Paul Harnett, Rina Hui, Richard Kefford, Nicholas Wilcken, Morten Ladekarl, Hans von der Maase and Frede Donskov
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2013 11:189
  8. Array-CGH represents a comprehensive tool to discover genomic disease alterations that could potentially be applied to body fluids. In this report, we aimed at applying array-CGH to urinary samples to characte...

    Authors: Virginia López, Pilar González-Peramato, Javier Suela, Alvaro Serrano, Ferrán Algaba, Juan C Cigudosa, August Vidal, Joaquim Bellmunt, Oscar Heredero and Marta Sánchez-Carbayo
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2013 11:182
  9. Estrogens were recently demonstrated to be synthesized in non-small cell lung carcinomas (NSCLCs) via aromatase activity and aromatase inhibitor (AI) did suppressed estrogen receptor (ER) positive NSCLC growth. H...

    Authors: Mohit K Verma, Yasuhiro Miki, Keiko Abe, Takashi Suzuki, Hiromichi Niikawa, Satoshi Suzuki, Takashi Kondo and Hironobu Sasano
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2013 11:167
  10. The epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and mesenchymal-to-epithelial transition (MET) play pivotal roles in metastasis of epithelial cancers. The distinction between them has shed new light on the mole...

    Authors: Songming Ding, Wu Zhang, Zhiyuan Xu, Chunyang Xing, Haiyang Xie, Haijun Guo, Kanjie Chen, Penghong Song, Yu Gu, Fengqiang Xiao, Lin Zhou and Shusen Zheng
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2013 11:164
  11. Given the complexity of tumor microenvironment, no single marker from cancer cells could adequately predict the clinical outcomes of gastric cancer (GC). The objective of this study was to evaluate the prognos...

    Authors: Chun-Wei Peng, Lin-Wei Wang, Min Fang, Gui-Fang Yang, Yan Li and Dai-Wen Pang
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2013 11:153
  12. Epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) is a significant cause of cancer-related mortality in women, and there has been no substantial decrease in the death rates due to EOC in the last three decades. Thus, basic know...

    Authors: Vincent Lavoué, Aurélie Thédrez, Jean Levêque, Fabrice Foucher, Sébastien Henno, Vincent Jauffret, Marc-Antoine Belaud-Rotureau, Veronique Catros and Florian Cabillic
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2013 11:147
  13. Recent observations suggest that immune-mediated tissue destruction is dependent upon coordinate activation of immune genes expressed by cells of the innate and adaptive immune systems.

    Authors: Maria Libera Ascierto, Michael O Idowu, Yingdong Zhao, Hanif Khalak, Kyle K Payne, Xiang-Yang Wang, Catherine I Dumur, Davide Bedognetti, Sara Tomei, Paolo A Ascierto, Anil Shanker, Harry D Bear, Ena Wang, Francesco M Marincola, Andrea De Maria and Masoud H Manjili
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2013 11:145
  14. Human papillomavirus type 16 (HPV 16) E2 protein is a multifunctional DNA-binding protein. HPV 16 E2 regulates many biological responses, including DNA replication, gene expression, and apoptosis. The purpose ...

    Authors: Ling-juan Gao, Ping-qing Gu, Wei Zhao, Wen-yan Ding, Xue-qing Zhao, Shu-yu Guo and Tian-ying Zhong
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2013 11:118
  15. Special AT-rich sequence binding protein 1 (SATB1) is a nuclear factor that functions as the global chromatin organizer to regulate chromatin structure and gene expression gene expression. SATB1 has been shown...

    Authors: Lijun Mao, Chunhua Yang, Junqi Wang, Wang Li, Rumin Wen, Jiacun Chen and Junnian Zheng
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2013 11:111
  16. Studies of primary patient tumor xenografts grown in immunodeficient mice have shown that these tumors histologically and genetically closely resemble the original tumors. These patient xenograft models are be...

    Authors: Bonnie L Hylander, Natalie Punt, Haikuo Tang, Joanna Hillman, Mary Vaughan, Wiam Bshara, Rose Pitoniak and Elizabeth A Repasky
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2013 11:110
  17. Interleukin (IL)-6 (mainly of tumor origin) activates glutathione (GSH) release from hepatocytes and its interorgan transport to B16-F10 melanoma metastatic foci. We studied if this capacity to overproduce IL-...

    Authors: Soraya L Valles, María Benlloch, María L Rodriguez, Salvador Mena, José A Pellicer, Miguel Asensi, Elena Obrador and José M Estrela
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2013 11:72
  18. T-cell infiltration in primary colon tumors is associated with improved patient survival. Preliminary data supports a similar association in colorectal liver metastases (CRLM), and we previously identified inc...

    Authors: Jian Zhong Qin, Vivek Upadhyay, Bellur Prabhakar and Ajay V Maker
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2013 11:70
  19. Our previous study showed that SLC22A18 downregulation and promoter methylation were associated with the development and progression of glioma and the elevated expression of SLC22A18 was found to increase the ...

    Authors: Sheng-Hua Chu, Yan-Bin Ma, Dong-Fu Feng, Zhi-Qiang Li and Pu-Cha Jiang
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2013 11:69
  20. Tumor-derived cytokines and their receptors usually take important roles in the disease progression and prognosis of cancer patients. In this survey, we aimed to detect the expression levels of MIF and CXCR4 i...

    Authors: Lin Zhang, Shu-Biao Ye, Gang Ma, Xiao-Feng Tang, Shi-Ping Chen, Jia He, Wan-Li Liu, Dan Xie, Yi-Xin Zeng and Jiang Li
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2013 11:60
  21. Protein tyrosine kinase 6 (PTK6), also known as breast tumor kinase (Brk), was a nonreceptor tyrosine kinase containing SH3, SH2, and tyrosine kinase catalytic domains. The deregulated expression of PTK6 was o...

    Authors: Xue-Kui Liu, Xin-Rui Zhang, Qian Zhong, Man-Zhi Li, Zhi-Min Liu, Zhi-Rui Lin, Di Wu and Mu-Sheng Zeng
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2013 11:59
  22. According to the Lauren classification, gastric adenocarcinomas are divided into diffuse and intestinal types. The causative attribution explaining the dismal prognosis of diffuse-type remains unknown.

    Authors: Miao-zhen Qiu, Mu-yan Cai, Dong-sheng Zhang, Zhi-qiang Wang, De-shen Wang, Yu-hong Li and Rui-hua Xu
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2013 11:58
  23. Wnt signaling in the colon cancer tumor microenvironment (TME) may affect cancer biologic properties including invasion and metastatic dissemination. Prior reports have suggested that the expression of select ...

    Authors: Kestutis Planutis, Marina Planutiene, Anthony V Nguyen, Mary Pat Moyer and Randall F Holcombe
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2013 11:50
  24. Cryoablation is one of the local therapies for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), but its safety and effect has not been studied in patients with Child class A or B and Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer (BCLC) stage ...

    Authors: Yong-Ping Yang, Jian-Hui Qu, Xiu-Juan Chang, Yin-Ying Lu, Wen-Lin Bai, Zheng Dong, Hong Wang, Lin-Jing An, Zhong-Xian Xu, Chun-Ping Wang, Zhen Zeng and Ke-Qin Hu
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2013 11:41
  25. Myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) are one of the major components of the immune-suppressive network, play key roles in tumor progression and limit therapeutic responses. Recently, we reported that tumor...

    Authors: Archana Thakur, Dana Schalk, Elyse Tomaszewski, Sri Vidya Kondadasula, Hiroshi Yano, Fazlul H Sarkar and Lawrence G Lum
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2013 11:35
  26. Colorectal carcinomas spread easily to nearby tissues around the colon or rectum, and display strong potential for invasion and metastasis. CSE1L, the chromosome segregation 1-like protein, is implicated in ca...

    Authors: Cheng-Jeng Tai, Tzu-Cheng Su, Ming-Chung Jiang, Hung-Chang Chen, Shing-Chuan Shen, Woan-Ruoh Lee, Ching-Fong Liao, Ying-Chun Chen, Shu-Hui Lin, Li-Tzu Li, Ko-Hung Shen, Chung-Min Yeh, Kun-Tu Yeh, Ching-Hsiao Lee, Hsin-Yi Shih and Chun-Chao Chang
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2013 11:29

    The Correction to this article has been published in Journal of Translational Medicine 2023 21:315

  27. Inhibitor of DNA binding 1 (Id1) and 3 (Id3) genes have been related with the inhibition of cell differentiation, cell growth promotion and tumor metastasis. Recently, Id1 has been identified as an independent...

    Authors: Eduardo Castañon, Joaquim Bosch-Barrera, Inés López, Víctor Collado, Marta Moreno, José María López-Picazo, Leire Arbea, María Dolores Lozano, Alfonso Calvo and Ignacio Gil-Bazo
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2013 11:13
  28. The chemokine CXCL14 has been reported to play an important role in the progression of many malignancies such as breast cancer and papillary thyroid carcinoma, but the role of CXCL14 in colorectal carcinoma (C...

    Authors: Jun Zeng, Xudan Yang, Lin Cheng, Rui Liu, Yunlong Lei, Dandan Dong, Fanghua Li, Quek Choon Lau, Longfei Deng, Edouard C Nice, Ke Xie and Canhua Huang
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2013 11:6
  29. The globular heads of the human C1q receptor (gC1qR) localize predominantly to the mitochondrial matrix. gC1qR mediates many biological responses, including growth perturbation, morphological abnormalities and...

    Authors: Zheng-lin Chen, Ping-qing Gu, Kangsheng Liu, Ya-juan Su and Ling-juan Gao
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2012 10:255
  30. The mechanism regarding rapid progression of residual hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) after insufficient radiofrequency ablation (RFA) has been preliminarily discussed. However, most studies have mainly focused...

    Authors: Jian Kong, Lingqun Kong, Jinge Kong, Shan Ke, Jun Gao, Xuemei Ding, Lemin Zheng, Huichuan Sun and Wenbing Sun
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2012 10:230
  31. Breast cancers are phenotypically and genotypically heterogeneous tumors containing multiple cancer cell populations with various metastatic potential. Aggressive tumor cell subpopulations might more easily be...

    Authors: Aleksandra Markiewicz, Tomasz Ahrends, Marzena Wełnicka-Jaśkiewicz, Barbara Seroczyńska, Jarosław Skokowski, Janusz Jaśkiewicz, Jolanta Szade, Wojciech Biernat and Anna J Żaczek
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2012 10:226
  32. High endothelial venules (HEV) have been recognized to play a role in metastasis by its changes seen in the cancer microenvironment of lymph nodes (LN) and solid cancers. Squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) of the t...

    Authors: Ser Yee Lee, Chao-Nan Qian, Aik Seng Ooi, Peiyi Chen, Hui Min Bernice Wong, Swe Swe Myint, Jing Chii Wong, Siok Gek Jacqueline Hwang and Khee Chee Soo
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2012 10:206
  33. Cervical cancer is the third most common cancer in women worldwide. The most common histopathological subtype is cervical squamous cell carcinoma (SCC, 75-80%), followed by adenocarcinoma (AC) and adenosquamou...

    Authors: Vivian M Spaans, Alexander AW Peters, Gert Jan Fleuren and Ekaterina S Jordanova
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2012 10:184
  34. The transforming growth factor (TGF-β) family of growth factors controls an immense number of cellular responses and figures prominently in development and homeostasis of most human tissues. Work over the past...

    Authors: Lenka Kubiczkova, Lenka Sedlarikova, Roman Hajek and Sabina Sevcikova
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2012 10:183
  35. Increased expression of transcriptional coactivator p300 has been observed in a variety of human cancers. However, the expression status of p300 protein/mRNA in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) tissues and its c...

    Authors: Zhi-Wei Liao, Tong-Chong Zhou, Xiao-Jun Tan, Xian-Lu Song, Yuan Liu, Xing-Yuan Shi, Wen-Jin Huang, Li-Li Du, Bo-Jun Tu and Xiao-dan Lin
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2012 10:110
  36. Zinc-alpha2-glycoprotein (AZGP1, ZAG) was recently demonstrated to be an important factor in tumor carcinogenesis. However, AZGP1 expression in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and its significance remain largel...

    Authors: Yan Huang, Lin-Zi Li, Chris Zhi-Yi Zhang, Chun Yi, Li-Li Liu, Xuan Zhou, Guo-Bing Xie, Mu-Yan Cai, Yan Li and Jing-Ping Yun
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2012 10:106
  37. Heat shock protein 70, a stress protein, has been implicated in tumor progression. However, its role in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) progression has not yet been clearly investigated.

    Authors: Man-Bo Cai, Xiao-Pai Wang, Jia-Xing Zhang, Hui-Qiong Han, Chao-Chun Liu, Jin-Xin Bei, Ruo-Jun Peng, Yi Liang, Qi-Sheng Feng, Hai-Yun Wang, Li-Zhen Chen, Sha Fu, Tiebang Kang, Jian-Yong Shao and Yi-Xin Zeng
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2012 10:96
  38. Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is well-known for its highly metastatic characteristics, but little is known of its molecular mechanisms. New biomarkers that predict clinical outcome, in particular the ability ...

    Authors: Chang-Han Chen, Li-Yen Shiu, Li-Jen Su, Chi-Ying F Huang, Shun-Chen Huang, Chao-Cheng Huang, Yu-Fang Yin, Wei-Sheng Wang, Hsin-Ting Tsai, Fu-Min Fang, Wan-Chu Chuang, Hong-Chang Kang and Chung-Feng Hwang
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2012 10:93
  39. Advanced endometrial cancer often shows resistance to clinical chemotherapy although potencies of anticancer drugs in vitro are promising. The disparity suggests that in vi vo microenvironments are not recapitula...

    Authors: Kenny Chitcholtan, Peter H Sykes and John J Evans
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2012 10:38
  40. Intratumoral and circulating regulatory T cells (Tregs) have been shown to be critical in the pathogenesis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However there is limited knowledge on the alterations of regulatory...

    Authors: Tianxiang Chen, Dongli Song, Zhihui Min, Xiangdong Wang, Yu Gu, Bajin Wei, Jia Yao, Kangjie Chen, Zhijun Jiang, Haiyang Xie, Lin Zhou and Shusen Zheng
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2012 10:14
  41. Bcl-2 is believed to contribute to melanoma chemoresistance. However, expression of Bcl-2 proteins may be different among melanomas. Thus correlations among expression of Bcl-2-related proteins and in vivo melano...

    Authors: Salvador Mena, María L Rodriguez, Angel Ortega, Sonia Priego, Elena Obrador, Miguel Asensi, Ignacio Petschen, Miguel Cerdá, Bob D Brown and José M Estrela
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2012 10:8
  42. A large amount of information has been collected on the molecular tumorigenesis of thyroid cancer. A low expression of c-KIT gene has been reported during the transformation of normal thyroid epithelium to pap...

    Authors: Sara Tomei, Chiara Mazzanti, Ivo Marchetti, Leonardo Rossi, Katia Zavaglia, Francesca Lessi, Alessandro Apollo, Paolo Aretini, Giancarlo Di Coscio and Generoso Bevilacqua
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2012 10:7
  43. Astrocyte elevated gene-1 (AEG-1) is associated with tumorigenesis and progression in diverse human cancers. The present study was aimed to investigate the clinical and prognostic significance of AEG-1 in sali...

    Authors: Wen-Ting Liao, Ling Guo, Yi Zhong, Yan-Heng Wu, Jun Li and Li-Bing Song
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2011 9:205
  44. The PI3K/Akt pathway is involved in cellular survival pathways by inhibiting apoptotic processes and stimulating cell growth and proliferation. Its negative prognostic value has been proven in many types of ca...

    Authors: Andrej Valkov, Thomas K Kilvaer, Sveinung W Sorbye, Tom Donnem, Eivind Smeland, Roy M Bremnes and Lill-Tove Busund
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2011 9:200
  45. Tumour cells communicate with the cells of their microenvironment via a series of molecular and cellular interactions to aid their progression to a malignant state and ultimately their metastatic spread. Of th...

    Authors: Thea L Rogers and Ingunn Holen
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2011 9:177
  46. Human melanoma frequently colonizes bone marrow (BM) since its earliest stage of systemic dissemination, prior to clinical metastasis occurrence. However, how melanoma cell adhesion and proliferation mechanism...

    Authors: María Valcárcel, Lorea Mendoza, José-Julio Hernández, Teresa Carrascal, Clarisa Salado, Olatz Crende and Fernando Vidal-Vanaclocha
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2011 9:142
  47. Metastasis is a common feature of many advanced stage cancers and metastatic spread is thought to be responsible for cancer progression. Most cancer cells are localized in the primary tumor and only a small po...

    Authors: Mirosław Andrusiewicz, Anna Szczerba, Maria Wołuń-Cholewa, Wojciech Warchoł, Ewa Nowak-Markwitz, Emilia Gąsiorowska, Krystyna Adamska and Anna Jankowska
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2011 9:130
  48. Serum IGF-I and IGF-II levels decline with age. IGF-I replacement therapy reduces the impact of age in rats. We have recently reported that IGF-II is able to act, in part, as an analogous of IGF-I in aging rat...

    Authors: Maria Garcia-Fernandez, Inma Sierra, Juan E Puche, Lucia Guerra and Inma Castilla-Cortazar
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2011 9:123
  49. We have previously reported that expression of the RNA- and DNA-binding protein RBM3 is associated with a good prognosis in breast cancer and ovarian cancer. In this study, the prognostic value of immunohistoc...

    Authors: Liv Jonsson, Julia Bergman, Björn Nodin, Jonas Manjer, Fredrik Pontén, Mathias Uhlén and Karin Jirström
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2011 9:114

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