Mechanisms of Microenvironment Governed Plasticity and Progression in Solid Tumors

Plastic cell state change in both premalignant and malignant stages of solid tumor progression is regulated and coordinated by cellular processes as diverse as epigenome modification, transcription, splicing, translation, protein modification, proteostasis, intracellular trafficking, stress responses, metabolic rewiring and cell division. The intratumoral heterogeneity resulting from this plasticity drives disease progression phenotypes such as invasion, evasion of immune targeting, dormancy and therapy resistance.

Recent advances in understanding cellular plasticity include identification of autocrine, paracrine, matrix and mechanotransduction signaling between tumor cells and their microenvironment, including diverse architectures and stromal cell compartments.

This topic aims to publish primary and review articles that expand upon these advances and those that uncover new tumor microenvironment-derived regulatory mechanisms controlling plasticity in solid tumor progression. Studies that develop or implement methods/platforms to combine spatial and single-cell methodologies toward this end are of particular interest.

The editors welcome submissions which cover the following sub topics in relation to the mechanisms of cellular plasticity and progression of solid tumor development.

• Tumor-stroma crosstalk
• Therapy & stress resistance
• Immune evasion
• Dormancy & metastasis
• Extracellular matrix & mechanotransduction