Function of Tenascins in the Tumor Stroma

In 1983, Bourdon et al. (Cancer Res 43:2796–2805, 1983) first described glioma-mesenchymal extracellular matrix (GMEM) antigen. Shortly thereafter it became clear that GMEM antigen, now known as tenascin-C, was expressed not only in brain tumors but also in rat mammary tumors (Chiquet-Ehrismann et al., Cell 47:131–139, 1986) and in human breast cancer (Mackie et al., Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 84:4621–4625, 1987). Work that followed demonstrated that tenascin-C was, in fact, overexpressed in almost all solid tumors (for review see Orend and Chiquet-Ehrismann, Cancer Lett 244:143–163, 2006).