The Cancer Cell: Dynamic Aspects and Modifications in Cell-Surface Organization

(Second of Two Parts) Cell-Surface Modifications on Cancer Cells The central importance of the cell surface in determining many features of tumor-cell behavior has served to stimulate a massive research effort to identify differences in the surface properties of normal cells and their neoplastic counterparts. This effort has been successful to the extent that an enormous catalogue of differences between normal and tumor-cell populations has been accumulated (Fig. 5).²²²³We now have little insight, however, into the mechanisms by which these manifold changes in surface properties arise in tumor cells and how these changes are maintained. Of more immediate importance.