The ECM and a Great Book

The extracellular matrix, ECM, is that soup which flows between cells and in which various proteins and other factors provide for cell strength, stability, nutrition, growth and control. Many who study cancer look inward towards the cell pathways often limiting understanding of the external portion to ligands and perhaps receptors. There has been recent expanded interest in understanding the ECM as an entity of some import and in fact as a parallel key element in cancer progression and control.

The text, Cell-Extracellular Matrix Interactions in Cancer, by Zent and Pozzi provides an excellent introduction to this area from the perspective of examining recent results and their corresponding literature and placing these overviews in a well structure document.

The book starts with a brief overview of the ECM and its elements. The collagens, fibronectins, integrins and all other elements which make up this soup are simply presented in summary form. As I will comment later it would have been useful to expand this a bit more for the reader aware of but not expert in the ECM.

Chapter 2 begins with integrins, the critical importance of integrins as receptors and interfaces with the ECM. Chapter 4 discusses the basement membrane. This is a critical part of the ECM and the presentation is well done in updating the reader with the literature.

The document follows with laminins, fibronectins, vitronectin, proteoglycans and others and discusses the relationships to various cancers. Chapters 11 and 12 are exceptionally useful for connecting the ECM to internal pathways. Chapter 11 details integrin linked kinases, ILK, and Chapter 12 the focal adhesion kinase, FAK, in pathway control. Recent work has demonstrated FAK centrality in many cancers including melanoma and these kinases also are looked upon as targets for control of these cancers as well.

The positive points of the book as I have tried to explain is the combination of exceptionally good authors and a well detailed examination of the research to date as of the publication. My only criticisms are related to expanding the audience by perhaps making the text more broadly acceptable. Although not clearly the intent of the authors, they accomplished superbly what they set out to do, but from the perspective of the otherwise focused professionals this could be an opportunity to expose the ECM more fully and in an integrated manner with so much of what is being developed in cancer understanding and modeling.

The book is somewhat dated, now 2008-2009, but it does a great job on getting the reader to that point. There are some things which may be useful in later editions; (i) some more pedagogic detail on the ECM, (ii) some possible discussion or targets of specific proteins for therapy, (iii) more detail on pathway dynamics, (iv) some discussion on ECM functions other than just the related research.

Overall this is a superb edition to any library of those doing cancer research, including those looking at spatio-temporal models since the ECM is often a neglected step-child.