Tenascin and other adhesion-modulating proteins in cancer.

A loss in cell-cell adhesion and an increase in cell motility are clearly prerequisites for the development of invasive tumors and metastasis. Since disseminating tumor cells have to interact with and migrate through extracellular matrices it is of interest to compare the composition of extracellular matrix proteins in normal and tumor tissues, in order to determine whether the extracellular matrix could be critically involved in affecting tumor cell adhesion and migration. The question will be addressed whether tumor extracellular matrix contains increased amounts of potentially antiadhesive extracellular matrix components and whether cells behave differently depending on the extracellular matrix they encounter. The results reviewed support the hypothesis that changes in the extracellular matrix and the cellular receptors are indeed important in the process of tumorigenesis.