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Cancer

Inflaming metastasis

Nature volume 457, pages 36–37 (2009)Cite this article

Cancer can be defined by six hallmarks, including uncontrollable growth, immortality and the ability to invade other tissues. Increasing evidence suggests that a seventh feature should make this list — inflammation.

Malignant tumours are characterized by their ability to metastasize, that is, to invade anatomically distant normal tissues and to seed and grow there. During this complex and highly selective process, tumour cells leave their primary site and disseminate by various routes, such as the blood and lymph vessels. Not all cancer cells can metastasize1, because successful metastasis depends both on intrinsic properties of the tumour cells and on factors derived from the tumour microenvironment. For example, the microenvironment provides blood and lymphatic vessels in and around the tumour, an inflammatory milieu consisting of immune cells and their secretory products, and a scaffold in the form of the extracellular matrix for further growth. Writing in this issue, Kim et al.2 shed light on the unexpected molecular pathways that link inflammation in the tumour microenvironment to metastasis (page 102).

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Figure 1: The hallmarks of cancer.

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  1. Alberto Mantovani is at the Istituto Clinico Humanitas IRCCS, and the University of Milan, Rozzano, Milan 20089, Italy. alberto.mantovani@humanitas.it ,

    Alberto Mantovani

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  1. Alberto Mantovani
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Mantovani, A. Inflaming metastasis. Nature 457, 36–37 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/457036b

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