Editorial: Tumor Microenvironment and Cancer Cell Interactions in Solid Tumor Growth and Therapy Resistance.

Abstract

Solid tumour tissues contain a tumour microenvironment (TME) which influences tumour progression and therapy resistance (Romano et al., 2021). TME is a network including non-cancer stromal cells, extracellular matrix (ECM), growth factors, nutrients, blood and lymphatic vessels (Avagliano et al., 2020b), and its structure and components, depending on the type and location of the tumour, make each solid tumour unique (Granato et al., 2017; Avagliano et al., 2020a). Moreover, the TME plasticity leads to its evolution with disease and adaptation to cancer cell and environmental alterations. The components of TME by interacting with each other and with tumour cells generate a cancer niche that sustains immunosuppressive processes, drug resistance, cancer recurrence and dissemination that represent the main causes of cancer related deaths.