TABLE 1.
Characteristics of TECs.
| Features | Manifestations | Tumour/signalling | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|
| Genetic instability | Larger nuclei | Human melanoma and liposarcoma | Hida et al. (2004) |
| Chromosomal translocations | B-cell lymphomas | Streubel et al. (2004) | |
| Aneuploid | Breast cancer | Lin et al. (2017) | |
| Genomic transfer | Cell fusion/cell-in-cell structure | Glinsky (2005), Wang et al. (2023) | |
| Genetic heterogeneity | Heterogeneous gene expression patterns | Influenced by tumour type, extracellular environment, and epigenetic regulation | Aird (2009), Hennigs et al. (2021) |
| Upregulated genes involved in angiogenesis (VEGFR1/2), cell proliferation and motility, stemness and drug resistance | Matsuda et al. (2010), Ohga et al. (2012) | ||
| Survival capacity in serum-free medium | Bussolati et al. (2003) | ||
| Upregulated extracellular matrix organisation genes such as COL4A2 and SPARC, and vascular endothelial cell markers such as CD31, AQP1 and CD34 | Hepatocellular carcinoma | Aizarani et al. (2019) | |
| Anoikis resistance | Resistance to anoikis | miR-145, Bcl-2, syndecan-4 | Yadav et al. (2015), Hida et al. (2017), Onyeisi et al. (2020) |
| Protected tumour cells from anoikis in circulation and helped them to migrate to distant organs | Pyaskovskaya et al. (2021) | ||
| Abnormal metabolism | Closely associated with glycolysis and oxidative stress | COX-2, PFKFB3, TRPM7, CA2 | Cantelmo et al. (2016), Wu et al. (2018), Zhang et al. (2018), Annan et al. (2019), Wu et al. (2023) |
| Resistance to anticancer drugs | ABCB1-postive TEC increased after first-line chemotherapy | Urothelial carcinoma | Kikuchi et al. (2020) |
| Resistant to paclitaxel | Human melanoma cell xenografts, MDR1 | Akiyama et al. (2012) | |
| Resistant to doxorubicin and 5-fluorouracil | Hepatocellular carcinoma, CD105 | Xiong et al. (2009) | |
| Resistant to the checkpoint blockade immunotherapy | Advanced non-small cell lung cancer, PD-L1 | Zhang et al. (2020) | |
| Adaptive to abnormal mechanical microenvironment | Inhibited leukocyte rolling but promoted their adhesion | Increased extracellular matrix stiffness; increased interstitial pressure and reduced blood flow/shear stress | Finger et al. (1996), Paszek et al. (2005) |
| Specific mechanical responsiveness | Independent of Inflammatory signalling; dependent on extracellular matrix composition | Onken et al. (2014), Riddle et al. (2022) |