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Tumor Discovery Cell-cell communication in cancer

Figure 1. Illustration of how decoding of cell-to-cell communication and signaling can uncover pathogenesis and therapeutic strategies of cancer.
The figure was created with BioRender.com.

that provides resources have been described previously.
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What was unclear before this study was which of these cell
types play these roles.
Preclinical research highlights that immune evasion
mechanisms emerge early in tumor development. For
example, single-cell analysis of premalignant mammary
tumors (driven by BRCA1 and p53 mutations in a
transgenic model) uncovered immunosuppressive
microenvironments marked by elevated regulatory T
cells (Tregs) and tissue-resident macrophages, even at
precancerous stages. Parallel findings in pancreatic
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cancer models revealed that mutant KRAS-driven lesions
progress faster when combined with tissue damage
Figure 2. A representative tumor tissue image showing immune cell-type mediated by the pro-inflammatory signal interleukin (IL)-
annotation in tumor microenvironment which is segmented to identify
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individual cells and their associated marker expression profiles. Figure 33. Administering IL-33 to mice with KRAS mutations
was created using ×10 Genomics Visium Spatial Software Suite. induced epigenetic dysregulation and accelerated
pancreatic intraepithelial neoplasia, demonstrating how
environmental stressors interact with genetic changes
Their study produced an overall network map of how to activate cancer-promoting pathways. These studies
strongly these cell types are communicating. The results underscore that the timing and drivers of immune evasion
of this network analysis is that the resistant tumor cells during tumor initiation vary depending on tissue type,
lacked normal communication with immune cells but
were sending plentiful immunosuppressive signals to initiating mutations, and host factors.
macrophages. Cancer cells can alter the phenotypes of Chronic inflammation creates a permissive
macrophages and myeloid cells, and the role of cancer- environment for cancer development by hijacking immune
associated fibroblasts and endothelial cells that can support cell interactions that suppress anti-tumor defenses.
the growth of the cancer by producing capillary network Inflamed tissues often exhibit Th2-polarized immunity

Volume 4 Issue 2 (2025) 94 doi: 10.36922/td.8323