Tumor progression-dependent angiogenesis in gastric cancer and its potential application

Figure 1 The tumor microenvironment regulates tumor growth, relapse and metastasis. Tumor dormancy can be induced in malignant cancer through several mechanisms, such as epigenetic or genetic changes (cancer stem cells, epithelial-mesenchymal transition, and miRNAs) in the tumor, tumor hypoxia, the angiogenic switch, immune evasion and inflammatory switchover. A change in the tumor microenvironment can facilitate tumor growth/relapse/metastasis and thereby permit the tumor to exit from dormancy through interaction with endothelial cells, tumor-associated fibroblasts, tumor-associated immune/inflammatory cells and the extracellular matrix.