Characterization of extracellular matrix composition in breast carcinoma

Excerpt

A different view of the tumour as a functional tissue interconnected with the microenvironment has recently been described [1]. Numerous reports in the past years indicate that the growth and progression of breast cancer cells, as well as other tumour cells, depend not only on their malignant potential, but also on stroma components present in the surrounding microenvironment [2]. Recent gene expression profiling studies on breast cancer showed that molecular classification of tumours based on the gene expression patterns can identify clinically different subtypes of cancer with different prognosis or disease outcome [3, 4]. However, since tumours are functional tissues dynamically interconnected with the micro-environment, this approach could give even more information if the tumor phenotype profile is related to the tumor-surrounding stroma characteristics. …