Biomarkers and Mechanisms of Tumor Progression: Translational Insights for Diagnosis and Therapy

Tumor progression is a dynamic and multistep process driven by reciprocal interactions between malignant cells, the tumor microenvironment, and systemic host factors. Elucidating the biomarkers and biological mechanisms that underlie disease initiation, local invasion, metastatic dissemination, therapeutic resistance, and recurrence remains central to improving cancer diagnosis, risk stratification, and treatment. At the same time, there is a growing need to translate mechanistic insights into clinically meaningful tools that can refine patient management across disease stages.

This Research Topic aims to highlight advances in the discovery, validation, and clinical interpretation of biomarkers associated with tumor progression, together with studies that deepen our understanding of the molecular, cellular, and microenvironmental mechanisms that shape cancer evolution. Of particular interest are contributions that connect mechanistic findings with diagnostic, prognostic, predictive, or therapeutic relevance, helping to bridge fundamental oncology research with translational and clinical application.

We welcome submissions addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:

o Molecular and cellular biomarkers associated with tumor progression, invasion, metastasis, recurrence, and therapy response

o Mechanisms of tumor evolution, intratumoral heterogeneity, clonal selection, and disease dissemination

o Tumor–stroma, tumor–immune, and extracellular matrix interactions that promote progression and metastatic niche formation

o Signaling pathways, transcriptional programs, epigenetic regulation, and metabolic reprogramming involved in aggressive disease behavior

o Circulating, tissue-based, and multi-parameter biomarkers for early detection of progression, prognostic assessment, and patient stratification

o Biomarkers and mechanisms linked to drug resistance, immune escape, and treatment failure

o Experimental, computational, and translational studies that validate progression-associated biomarkers in preclinical models, patient cohorts, or clinically relevant datasets

o Emerging diagnostic and therapeutic strategies informed by biomarkers or mechanism-based understanding of tumor progression

By bringing together mechanistic, biomarker-driven, and translational studies, this Research Topic seeks to provide a focused platform for research that advances our understanding of how cancers progress and how that knowledge can be harnessed to improve diagnosis and therapy. This collection welcomes original research articles, reviews, mini-reviews and meta-analysis studies, which will be of interest to molecular oncologists, translational researchers, tumor biologists, biomarker specialists, and clinician-scientists working to connect disease biology with clinical impact.




Please note: Manuscripts consisting solely of bioinformatics, computational analysis, or predictions of public databases which are not accompanied by validation (independent clinical or patient cohort, or biological validation in vitro or in vivo, which are not based on public databases) are not suitable for publication in this journal.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Clinical Trial
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Clinical Trial
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: tumor progression, metastasis, drug resistance, biomarkers, intratumoral interactions

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.