title: The gastrointestinal tumor microenvironment.
abstract: Over the past decade, the microenvironment of gastrointestinal tumors has gained increasing attention because it is required for tumor initiation, progression, and metastasis. The tumor microenvironment has many components and has been recognized as one of the major hallmarks of epithelial cancers. Although therapeutic strategies for gastrointestinal cancer have previously focused on the epithelial cell compartment, there is increasing interest in reagents that alter the microenvironment, based on reported interactions among gastrointestinal epithelial, stromal, and immune cells during gastrointestinal carcinogenesis. We review the different cellular components of the gastrointestinal tumor microenvironment and their functions in carcinogenesis and discuss how improving our understanding of the complex stromal network could lead to new therapeutic strategies.
authors.affiliation: II. Medizinische Klinik, Klinikum rechts der Isar, Technische Universität München, München, Germany. Electronic address: michael.quante@lrz.tum.de.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Quante
authors.affiliation: Institut für Molekulare Immunologie, Klinikum rechts der Isar, Technische Universität München, München, Germany.
authors.forename: Julia
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Varga
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine and Irving Cancer Research Center, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York.
authors.forename: Timothy C
authors.initials: TC
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Institut für Molekulare Immunologie, Klinikum rechts der Isar, Technische Universität München, München, Germany; German Cancer Consortium and German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany. Electronic address: florian.greten@lrz.tum.de.
authors.forename: Florian R
authors.initials: FR
authors.lastname: Greten
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005347:Fibroblasts / Q000502:physiology; D005770:Gastrointestinal Neoplasms / Q000276:immunology / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D008264:Macrophages / Q000502:physiology; D064307:Microbiota / Q000502:physiology; D022423:Myeloid Cells / Q000502:physiology; D016328:NF-kappa B / Q000502:physiology; D014411:Neoplastic Stem Cells / Q000502:physiology; D050796:STAT3 Transcription Factor / Q000502:physiology; D015398:Signal Transduction; D058504:Th17 Cells / Q000502:physiology; D059016:Tumor Microenvironment / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D016328:NF-kappa B; D050796:STAT3 Transcription Factor