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Life
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Tumor Microenvironment of Urogenital Cancers: Looking for Novel Biomarkers and...
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Tumor Microenvironment of Urogenital Cancers: Looking for Novel Biomarkers and Treatments

A special issue of Life (ISSN 2075-1729). This special issue belongs to the section "Medical Research".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 December 2022) | Viewed by 5236

Special Issue Editors

Dr. João Lobo

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Pathology & Cancer Biology and Epigenetics Group, Research Center (LAB3) IPO Porto, Instituto Português de Oncologia, 4200-072 Porto, Portugal
Interests: testicular cancer; kidney cancer; prostate cancer; bladder cancer; biomarkers; liquid biopsies; epigenetics; pathology
Dr. Ricardo Leão

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Faculty of Medicine, University of Coimbra, 3004-531 Coimbra, Portugal
Interests: prostate cancer; testicular cancer; bladder cancer; kidney cancer; biomarkers

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Our understanding of the tumor microenvironment has greatly evolved in recent years and led to important discoveries with implications for patients’ outcome and eligibility for targeted therapies. Urogenital malignancies, including kidney, bladder, prostate, testicular and penile cancers, comprise very diverse and interesting tumor models for investigating several aspects of the tumor microenvironment and its interaction with tumor progression. This includes the study of a wide array of immune cell populations infiltrating the tumor, but also of the interaction with stromal cells, tumor vasculature and extracellular matrix.

In this Special Issue we aim to gather original contributions devoted to studying the tumor microenvironment of urogenital malignancies, with the ultimate aim of finding novel biomarkers and therapies with clinical implications for daily practice. In silico and in vitro studies are recommended to include clinical validation in patient samples. Review articles with novel perspectives and establishing the bridge between biology and clinical applications are welcomed.

Dr. João Lobo
Dr. Ricardo Leão
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Life is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • kidney cancer
  • testicular cancer
  • bladder cancer
  • prostate cancer
  • penile cancer
  • immune microenvironment
  • inflammation
  • pathology
  • digital pathology
  • biomarkers
  • targeted therapies
  • immunotherapy
  • immune checkpoints
  • extracellular matrix
  • angiogenesis
  • cancer-associated fibroblasts

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

11 pages, 2160 KiB  
Article
In-Silico Analysis of Deleterious SNPs of FGF4 Gene and Their Impacts on Protein Structure, Function and Bladder Cancer Prognosis
by Ee Chen Lim, Shu Wen Lim, Kenneth JunKai Tan, Maran Sathiya, Wan Hee Cheng, Kok-Song Lai, Jiun-Yan Loh and Wai-Sum Yap
Life 2022, 12(7), 1018; https://doi.org/10.3390/life12071018 - 9 Jul 2022
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2741
Abstract
Dysregulation of fibroblast growth factors is linked to the pathogenesis of bladder cancer. The role of FGF1 and FGF3 is evident in bladder cancer; however, the role of FGF4 is vague. Despite being reported that FGF4 interacts with FGF1 and FGF3 in MAPK [...] Read more.
Dysregulation of fibroblast growth factors is linked to the pathogenesis of bladder cancer. The role of FGF1 and FGF3 is evident in bladder cancer; however, the role of FGF4 is vague. Despite being reported that FGF4 interacts with FGF1 and FGF3 in MAPK pathways, its pathogenesis and mechanism of action are yet to be elucidated. Therefore, this study aimed to elucidate pathogenic nsSNPs and their role in the prognosis of bladder cancer by employing in-silico analysis. The nsSNPs of FGF4 were retrieved from the NCBI database. Different in silico tools, PROVEAN, SIFT, PolyPhen-2, SNPs&GO, and PhD-SNP, were used for predicting the pathogenicity of the nsSNPs. Twenty-seven nsSNPs were identified as “damaging”, and further stability analysis using I-Mutant 2.0 and MUPro indicated 22 nsSNPs to cause decreased stability (DDG scores < −0.5). Conservation analysis predicted that Q97K, G106V, N164S, and N167S were highly conserved and exposed. Biophysical characterisation indicated these nsSNPs were not tolerated, and protein-protein interaction analysis showed their involvement in the GFR-MAPK signalling pathway. Furthermore, Kaplan Meier bioinformatics analyses indicated that the FGF4 gene deregulation affected the overall survival rate of patients with bladder cancer, leading to prognostic significance. Thus, based on these analyses, our study suggests that the reported nsSNPs of FGF4 may serve as potential targets for diagnoses and therapeutic interventions focusing on bladder cancer. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Tumor Microenvironment of Urogenital Cancers: Looking for Novel Biomarkers and Treatments)
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15 pages, 525 KiB  
Article
Detection of Specific Immune Cell Subpopulation Changes Associated with Systemic Immune Inflammation–Index Level in Germ Cell Tumors
by Katarina Kalavska, Zuzana Sestakova, Andrea Mlcakova, Paulina Gronesova, Viera Miskovska, Katarina Rejlekova, Daniela Svetlovska, Zuzana Sycova-Mila, Jana Obertova, Patrik Palacka, Jozef Mardiak, Miroslav Chovanec, Michal Chovanec and Michal Mego
Life 2022, 12(5), 678; https://doi.org/10.3390/life12050678 - 2 May 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1656
Abstract
The tumor microenvironment (TME) and the host inflammatory response are closely interconnected. The interplay between systemic inflammation and the local immune response may influence tumor development and progression in various types of cancer. The systemic immune–inflammation index (SII) represents a prognostic marker for [...] Read more.
The tumor microenvironment (TME) and the host inflammatory response are closely interconnected. The interplay between systemic inflammation and the local immune response may influence tumor development and progression in various types of cancer. The systemic immune–inflammation index (SII) represents a prognostic marker for germ cell tumors (GCTs). The aim of the present study was to detect specific immune cell subpopulation changes which were associated with the SII level in chemotherapy-naïve GCT patients. In total, 51 GCT patients, prior to cisplatin-based chemotherapy, were included in the present study. Immunophenotyping of peripheral blood leukocyte subpopulations was performed using flow cytometry. The SII level was correlated with the percentage of various leukocyte subpopulations. The obtained results demonstrated that SII levels above the cut-off value of SII ≥ 1003 were associated with higher neutrophil percentages. An inverse correlation was found between the SII and the peripheral lymphocyte percentage that logically reflects the calculations of the SII index. Furthermore, the presented data also showed that in the lymphocyte subpopulation, the association with the SII was driven by T-cell subpopulations. In innate immunity–cell subpopulations, we observed a correlation between SII level and neutrophils as well as associations with eosinophil, basophil, natural killer cell and dendritic cell percentages. We suppose that the described interactions represent a manifestation of cancer-induced immune suppression. The results of the present study contribute to the elucidation of the interrelationship between tumor cells and the innate/adaptive immune system of the host. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Tumor Microenvironment of Urogenital Cancers: Looking for Novel Biomarkers and Treatments)
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