In the past 25 years, a majority of cancer studies have focused on examining functional
consequences of activating and/or inactivating mutations in critical genes implicated in cell …

Malignant transformation of an epithelium occurs within the context of a dynamically
evolving tissue stroma that is composed of multiple cell types surrounded by an extracellular …

Numerous studies have demonstrated that the tumor microenvironment not only responds to
and supports carcinogenesis, but also actively contributes to tumor initiation, progression …

The importance of stromal cells and the factors that they express during cancer initiation and
progression has been highlighted by recent literature. The cellular components of the stroma …

The majority of studies of neoplastic transformation have focused attention on events that
occur within transformed cells. These cell autonomous events result in the disruption of …

Publisher Summary This chapter describes various modes of interaction between malignant
cells and stroma. Malignant cells are shown to produce various lytic enzymes, which attack …

Recently, a view of the tumor as a functional tissue interconnected with the
microenvironment has recently been described. For many years, the stroma has been …

Recent advances in tumor biology have revealed that a detailed analysis of the complex
interactions of tumor cells with their adjacent microenvironment (tumor stroma) is mandatory …

Reciprocal interactions between tumor and stromal cells propel cancer progression and
metastasis. A complete understanding of the complex contributions of the tumor stroma to …

Carcinogenesis–the process of cancer formation–is commonly discussed in terms of genetic
alterations that lead to deregulation of cell growth. Recently, there has been a resurgence of …