Recapitulating the human tumor microenvironment: Colon tumor-derived extracellular matrix promotes angiogenesis and tumor cell growth.

ABSTRACT: Extracellular matrix (ECM) is an essential and dynamic component of all tissues and directly affects cellular behavior by providing both mechanical and biochemical signaling cues. Changes in ECM can alter tissue homeostasis, potentially leading to promotion of cellular transformation and the generation of tumors. Therefore, understanding ECM compositional changes during cancer progression is vital to the development of targeted treatments. Previous efforts to reproduce the native 3D cellular microenvironment have utilized protein gels and scaffolds that incompletely recapitulate the complexity of native tissues. Here, we address this problem by extracting and comparing ECM from normal human colon and colon tumor that had metastasized to liver. We found differences in protein composition an

SUBMITTER: Romero-Lopez M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5226635 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature