Published online Nov 24, 2023. doi: 10.5306/wjco.v14.i11.518
Peer-review started: August 2, 2023
First decision: August 16, 2023
Revised: September 14, 2023
Accepted: October 16, 2023
Article in press: October 16, 2023
Published online: November 24, 2023
Processing time: 111 Days and 21.8 Hours
Mechanical stimuli, generated by the contact between cells (both tumor and non-tumur) or with the non-cellular microenvironment, have been demonstrated to play a significant role in the development of cancer. Unlike biochemical transduction, which depends on small molecules, growth factors, and cytokines, mechanotransduction is a process whereby cells sense mechanical cues in their external environment and translate them into biochemical signals to impact their intracellular activities. Indeed, in recent investigations, the importance of mechanical stimulation in cancer development is described as being on par with biochemical factors. Drs David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian were awarded the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work on mechanosensitive ion channels, which has already acted as a new catalyst for the increasing numbers of researchers to conduct mechanotransduction-related cancer research. Bibliometrics is a useful quantitative method to comprehensively analyze publications in multiple aspects, including the authors, organizations, countries, journals, and keywords, to uncover collaboration conditions and emerging trends in specific research areas. Although increasing numbers of research papers are now starting to focus on the role of mechanotransduction in cancer, to date no bibliometric analysis has been conducted to quantify the situation.
The deep understanding of mechanotransduction in cancer will not only help determine the reasons behind the tumor heterogeneity, but also facilitate the development of more versatile approaches to cancer diagnosis and therapy.
To provides an objective evaluation of the dynamics and emerging trends of mechanotransduction-related cancer research.
We present the first bibliometric analysis of research conducted on mechanotransduction in cancer and reveal the current trends and hot topics in this field.
This study showed that mechanotransduction-related cancer research remains a hot topic, with approximately 100 papers and 5000 citations generated per year in the past three years. Additionally, the United States is a well-established global leader of this field, and the University of California system is the most influential organization in this field. The keywords “plasma membrane”, “autophagy”, “piezo1/2”, “heterogeneity”, “cancer diagnosis”, and “post-transcriptional modification” are likely to be the next topics of interest in this field.
Our results found that mechanotransduction-related cancer research is an increasingly popular topic in the world today. The United States is in the leading position of global research on mechano-oncology after almost 30 years of investigations, and the University of California system (with the largest number of collaborators), is the most influential organization based on its publication and citation times. Research group cooperations exist but remain largely domestic, lacking cross-national communications.
We predict that the next ‘hot’ topic in cancer research will be investigating how localized mechanosensors in the plasma membrane transduce mechanical forces via post-transcriptional modifications to participate in the regulation of cellular activity.