Journal
Discover Oncology
Discover Oncology is an open access journal publishing content that interfaces at all levels of cancer research.
A malignant tumor is a complex mass of tissue comprised of not just the cancer cells, but also a heterogeneous group of infiltrating and resident host cells, and their secreted factors forming the extracellular matrix. As cancer evolves, tumor cells continue to build a supportive environment around them that ensures their sustained growth and facilitate their spread to nearby and distant sites. Further, the supportive tumor microenvironment (TME) also protects the cancer cells from external challenges, such as cancer therapies, and thus serves as an important determinant of the therapeutic outcomes. The co-evolution of TME happens through effective communications between cancer and host cells that is enabled through the release of soluble factors and extracellular vesicles. Hypoxia created due to the rapid growth of tumor cells also affects the tumor cell phenotypes and the bi-directional host-tumor interactions. Therefore, understanding the dynamics of the interplay between tumor cells and its microenvironment is highly desirable to understand what happens within the TME, how that influences tumor growth and metastasis, and what mechanisms are involved in the TME-mediated therapeutic resistance of the cancer cells.
Keywords:
Tumor microenvironment; Cell-cell communication; Tumor-stromal crosstalk; Stromal remodeling; Extracellular vesicles; Hypoxia; Immune cells; Angiogenesis; Metastasis; Therapeutic resistance
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Ajay Singh
Professor, University of South Alabama, USA He is a Professor and Director of Research in the Department of Pathology at the College of Medicine, University of South Alabama. He also holds an adjunct appointment in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. He is a senior member of the Mitchell Cancer Institute, where he leads a Program in Cancer Biology and Cancer Health Disparities. As the Director of the Tumor Microenvironment Laboratory, he focuses on the impact of the tumor microenvironment on the functioning of the tumor cells at the molecular level. -
Seema Singh
PhD, University of South Alabama, USA She is a Professor of Pathology at the College of Medicine, University of South Alabama, holding an adjunct appointment in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. She is also a senior member of the Mitchell Cancer Institute, where she heads the Inflammation and Immunobiology laboratory. Her major research interests are to understand host-tumor interactions and their roles in cancer pathobiology.
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