Figure - PMC

Skip to main content

An official website of the United States government

Here's how you know

Here's how you know

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

View full-text article in PMC

. 2022 Sep 16;41:276. doi: 10.1186/s13046-022-02484-1

Search in PMC
Search in PubMed
View in NLM Catalog
Add to search

© The Author(s) 2022

Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.

PMC Copyright notice

Fig. 3 — The role of ECM in the TME. There is a bidirectional communication between the malignant clone and the TME associated cells, which ultimately leads them to increase their secretion of proteases, crosslinkers and soluble cytokines/chemokines. The altered ECM resulting from these changes in cell secretion subsequently has an impact in affecting the malignant clone and the TME. Specifically, it can be observed how the malignant clone can alter the properties of surrounding fibroblasts, transforming them in cancer associated fibroblasts, which, subsequently secrete VEGFA, with important proangiogenic properties. Another important cell that communicates with the malignant clone and has an influence on the ECM is represented by the tumor associated macrophage, which secretes key inflammatory cytokines which indirectly alter the ECM. Added to this, the malignant clone itself is able to secrete matrix metalloproteinases, which affect the structure of the surrounding ECM, making it more appropriate for tumor development