Tumor Microenvironment and Nitric Oxide: Concepts and Mechanisms.

Tumor Microenvironment and Nitric Oxide: Concepts and Mechanisms. Adv Exp Med Biol. 2020;1277:143-158 Authors: Vedenko A, Panara K, Goldstein G, Ramasamy R, Arora H Abstract The cancer tissue exists not as a single entity, but as a combination of different cellular phenotypes which, taken together, dramatically contribute to the entirety of their ecosystem, collectively termed as the tumor microenvironment (TME). The TME is composed of both immune and nonimmune cell types, stromal components, and vasculature-all of which cooperate to promote cancer progression. Not all immune cells, however, are immune-suppressive; some of them can promote the immune microenvironment to fight the invading and uncontrollably dividing cell populations at the initial stages of tumor growth. Yet, many of these processes and cellular phenotypes fall short, and the immune ecosystem more often than not ends up stabilizing in favor of the "resistant" resident cells that begin clonal expansion and may progress to metastatic forms. Stromal components, making up the extracellular matrix and basement membrane, are also not the most innocuous: CAFs embedded throughout secrete proteases that allow the onset of one of the most invasive processes-angiogenesis-through destruction of the ECM and the basement membrane. Vasculature formation, because of angiogenesis, is the largest invader of the TME and the reason metastasis happens. Vasculature is so sporadic and omni...
Source: Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology - Category: Research Tags: Adv Exp Med Biol Source Type: research