The tumor microenvironment (TME) is integral to cancer progression, impacting metastasis and treatment response. It consists of diverse cell types, extracellular matrix components, and signaling molecules that interact to promote tumor growth and therapeutic resistance. Elucidating the intricate interactions between cancer cells and the TME is crucial in understanding cancer progression and therapeutic challenges. A critical process induced by TME signaling is the epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), wherein epithelial cells acquire mesenchymal traits, which enhance their motility and invasiveness and promote metastasis and cancer progression. By targeting various components of the TME, novel investigational strategies aim to disrupt the TME's contribution to the EMT, thereby improving treatment efficacy, addressing therapeutic resistance, and offering a nuanced approach to cancer therapy. This review scrutinizes the key players in the TME and the TME's contribution to the EMT, emphasizing avenues to therapeutically disrupt the interactions between the various TME components. Moreover, the article discusses the TME's implications for resistance mechanisms and highlights the current therapeutic strategies toward TME modulation along with potential caveats.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13045-024-01634-6 | DOI Listing |
Heliyon
January 2025
Department of Medical Oncology, Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Guangdong Key Laboratory of Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma Diagnosis and Therapy, Guangdong Provincial Clinical Research Center for Cancer, Guangzhou, 510060, PR China.
Background: In several studies of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSC), the regulation of tumorigenesis and therapeutic sensitivity by pyroptosis has been observed. However, a systematic analysis of gasdermin family members (GSDMs, including GSDMA/B/C/D/E and PJVK), which are deterministic executors of pyroptosis, has not yet been reported in HNSC.
Methods: We performed comprehensive analyses of the expression profile, prognostic value, regulatory network, and immune infiltration modulation of GSDMs in HNSC on the basis of a computational approach and bioinformatic analysis of publicly available datasets.
Heliyon
January 2025
Cancer Early Detection Advanced Research Center (CEDAR), Knight Cancer Institute, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, OR, USA.
Neurosignaling is increasingly recognized as a critical factor in cancer progression, where neuronal innervation of primary tumors contributes to the disease's advancement. This study focuses on segmenting individual axons within the prostate tumor microenvironment, which have been challenging to detect and analyze due to their irregular morphologies. We present a novel deep learning-based approach for the automated segmentation of axons, AxonFinder, leveraging a U-Net model with a ResNet-101 encoder, based on a multiplexed imaging approach.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground And Aim: The high rate of tumor growth results in an increased need for amino acids. As solute carriers (SLC) transporters are capable of transporting different amino acids, cancer may develop as a result of these transporters' over-expression due to their complex formation with other biological molecules. Therefore, this review investigated the role of SLC transporters in the progression of cancer.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFVet Res Forum
November 2024
Immunology Research Center, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran.
Docetaxel (DTX) is widely utilized in breast cancer treatment. However, cancer cell resistance has limited its anti-tumor efficacy. Some molecules called microRNAs (miRNAs), acting like fine-tuned switches, can influence how breast cancer develops and spreads.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBiochem Biophys Rep
March 2025
Department of Genetics and Molecular Biology, Faculty of Medicine, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran.
Introduction: Gastric cancer (GC) is among the deadliest malignancies globally, characterized by hypoxia-driven pathways that promote cancer progression, including stemness mechanisms facilitating invasion and metastasis. This study aimed to develop a prognostic decision tree using genes implicated in hypoxia and stemness pathways to predict outcomes in GC patients.
Materials And Methods: GC RNA-seq data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) were analyzed to compute hypoxia and stemness scores using Gene Set Variation Analysis (GSVA) and the mRNA expression-based stemness index (mRNAsi).
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