Review Article Cancer Microenvironment and Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress Response

Copyright © 2015 Claudia Giampietri et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Different stressful conditions such as hypoxia, nutrient deprivation, pH changes, or reduced vascularization, potentially able to act as growth-limiting factors for tumor cells, activate the unfolded protein response (UPR). UPR is therefore involved in tumor growth and adaptation to severe environments and is generally cytoprotective in cancer.The present review describes themolecular mechanisms underlying UPR and able to promote survival and proliferation in cancer.The critical role of UPR activation in tumor growth promotion is discussed in detail for a few paradigmatic tumors such as prostate cancer and melanoma. 1