Basic Science > Microenvironment of Cancer Initiation and Progression
Interactions between the epithelium and myofibroblasts are likely to be important in determining the niche occupied by stem cells and transit amplifier cells and dysfunction in this system is a putative contributor to the processes by which epithelial tumours arise on a background of chronic tissue injury or inflammation.
Myofibroblasts are a major stromal component in cancer and recent work has emphasised their possible roles in cancer initiation and progression, including metastasis. What remains unclear is whether (and if so how) cancer-derived myofibroblasts differ from normal myofibroblasts.
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The progression to gastric and oesophageal cancer includes well defined sequences of tissue reorganisation, including changes that favour the acquisition of mutations. Using these systems as a starting point, the group is focusing on proteomic-led characterisation of the microenvironment using primary cultured gastric epithelial cells and myofibroblasts derived from either tumour tissue or adjacent “normal” tissue from the same patient thereby revealing aberrant contributions to the microenvironment in cancer; the use of yeast two-hybrid and computational methods to investigate the role of proteins that are differentially expressed in cancer derived myofibroblasts; the construction of cancer-related network maps, which can be used to predict new therapeutic strategies which reduce the potential for harmful side effects; in addition, this work provides strategies for the identification of biomarkers for patients with chronic infection (H. pylori) at risk for gastric cancer development. |
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| Professor Chris Sanderson | Professor Andrea Varro | Professor Mark Pritchard | Dr Lugang Yu | |||
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