Molecular and Cellular Heterogeneity in an Evolving Tumor Landscape: When Diversity Gives Rise to Aggressive and Drug Resistant Cells
A special issue of Cancers (ISSN 2072-6694). This special issue belongs to the section "Molecular Cancer Biology".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 May 2024 | Viewed by 2531
Special Issue Editor
Interests: single cell biophysical analysis; cell mechanics; cancer cell biology; tumor microenvironment interactions; cellular senescence; extracellular matrix remodeling; mechanisms of chemoresistance; paracrine interactions; tumor exosomes; polyploidy and giant cancer cells; breast and ovarian cancer
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
This Special Issue focuses on cellular heterogeneity, which reflects the level of cellular diversity and molecular adaptation in the tumor, a critical cancer research topic. Cellular heterogeneity stems from the clonal expansion of genetically diverse cells under selective pressures from the surrounding environment, which is heterogeneous in structure and composition. This heterogeneity results in complicated molecular landscapes with subpopulations of highly invasive and chemoresistant tumor cells. This heterogeneity makes it difficult to develop treatments that effectively target and destroy all cancer cells. Cells that survive cancer treatment may acquire additional genetic and epigenetic modifications that contribute to their metastatic and drug resistant phenotypes.
This Special Issue will focus on cell populations that develop in an evolving tumor landscape and give rise to aggressive and chemoresistant cancers. This includes cancer stem cells, polyploidal giant cancer cells, therapy-induced senescent cells, and other dormant cancer cells. This also includes carcinoma-associated fibroblasts, tumor-associated macrophages, and other stromal cells that are present in the tumor microenvironment. Studies on heterogeneity in epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition, tumor exosome heterogeneity, or spatial heterogeneity in the tumor microenvironment would also be relevant to this topic.
Work submitted to this Issue may use single-cell or spatial analysis techniques, mathematical modeling, or image analysis to probe intratumor and/or cellular heterogeneity in 2D cell culture, 3D extracellular matrix models, or other physical models of the tumor microenvironment or in animal studies. Molecular characterization of data from The Cancer Genome Atlas would also be relevant to this topic if it addresses issues of cellular or molecular heterogeneity in single tumors (intratumor heterogeneity).
I look forward to your submissions on this critical cancer research topic.
Dr. Michelle R. Dawson
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Cancers is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Planned Papers
The below list represents only planned manuscripts. Some of these manuscripts have not been received by the Editorial Office yet. Papers submitted to MDPI journals are subject to peer-review.
Title: CYTOSTASIS IS ASSOCIATED WITH ITGB4/ECM-DEPENDENT CELL PROTECTION FROM GENOTOXIC STRESS IN OVARIAN CANCER CELL MODELS
Authors: Sadaf Farsinejad; Va’Shayna Williams; Tonja Pavlovic; Daniel Centeno; Marcin Iwanicki
Affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Stevens Institute of Technology , Hoboken, NJ , USA
Abstract: While recent studies linked ovarian cancer growth suppression to cell protection, it is still not clear whether these mechanisms involve regulation of integrins and ECM. Using ovarian cancer cell models, we demonstrate that inhibition of cell proliferation by CDK4/6 inhibitor Palbociclib induces cell protection from cisplatin. Bulk RNA-sequencing of Palbociclib-treated ovarian cancer cell line Hey-A8 indicated activation of ECM adhesion transcripts, including integrin b4. Interrogation of ovarian cancer TCGA data sets supported the association of increased ECM/integrin b4 mRNA expression with negative regulators of proliferation. Consistent with these observations, integrin b4 overexpression and reconstitution of ECM was sufficient to suppress ovarian cancer cell proliferation and support cell protection from cisplatin. Our results provide new evidence that cytostasis is associated with integrin-b4 and ECM-dependent cell protection from genotoxic stress in ovarian cancer cell models.
