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Comment
. 2019 Jan;9(1):19-21.
doi: 10.1158/2159-8290.CD-18-1320.

Something Old, Something New: The Tumor Microenvironment Comes of Age

Kerrie L Marie  1 , Glenn Merlino  1
Affiliations
Comment

Something Old, Something New: The Tumor Microenvironment Comes of Age

Kerrie L Marie et al. Cancer Discov. 2019 Jan.

Abstract

In this issue, Weeraratna and colleagues demonstrate that observed differences in melanoma aggressiveness in younger versus older patients can be explained not just by cell-intrinsic alterations over time, but by age-dependent changes in fibroblasts and the extracellular matrix they help create. Their findings identify novel cellular targets for melanoma therapy, as well as candidate prognostic biomarkers to better inform clinical decisions for patients with melanoma.See related article by Kaur et al., p. 64.See related article by Ecker et al., p. 82.

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Conflict of interest statement

Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest

G. Merlino is a scientific advisory board member of the Melanoma Research Foundation. No potential conflicts of interest were disclosed by the other author.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
The aged microenvironment facilitates distant melanoma metastasis. An increase in HAPLN1 in young dermal/lymphatic fibroblasts results in dense isotropic collagen ECM, which impairs melanoma metastasis and extravasation from lymphatic vessels, but encourages T-cell infiltration. Decrease in HAPLN1 in aged dermal/lymphatic fibroblasts results in loose anisotropic collagen ECM, which encourages melanoma metastasis and extravasation from lymphatic vessels, but impairs T-cell infiltration. Illustration by Mr. Jonathan Marie.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment on

References

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