title: Tumor and the microenvironment: a chance to reframe the paradigm of carcinogenesis?
abstract: The somatic mutation theory of carcinogenesis has eventually accumulated an impressive body of shortfalls and paradoxes, as admittedly claimed by its own supporters given that the cell-based approach can hardly explain the emergence of tissue-based processes, like cancer. However, experimental data and alternatives theories developed during the last decades may actually provide a new framework on which cancer research should be reframed. Such issue may be fulfilled embracing new theoretical perspectives, taking the cells-microenvironment interplay as the privileged level of observation and assuming radically different premises as well as new methodological frameworks. Within that perspective, the tumor microenvironment cannot be merely considered akin to new "factor" to be added to an already long list of "signaling factors"; microenvironment represents the physical-biochemical support of the morphogenetic field which drives epithelial cells towards differentiation and phenotype transformation, according to rules understandable only by means of a systems biology approach. That endeavour entails three fundamental aspects: general biological premises, the level of observation (i.e., the systems to which we are looking for), and the principles of biological organization that would help in integrating and understanding experimental data.
authors.affiliation: Department of Experimental Medicine, "Sapienza" University of Rome, Systems Biology Group, Viale Regina Elena 324, Via A. Scarpa 14, 00161 Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Mariano
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-0408-4136
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bizzarri
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery "Pietro Valdoni", "Sapienza" University of Rome, Via A. Scarpa 14, 00161 Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Alessandra
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cucina
mesh_terms: D063646:Carcinogenesis / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D009154:Mutation; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000209:etiology / Q000235:genetics* / Q000473:pathology; D015398:Signal Transduction; D049490:Systems Biology; D059016:Tumor Microenvironment / Q000235:genetics*