ArticleThe American journal of pathology2011
Aligned collagen is a prognostic signature for survival in human breast carcinoma.
Article in The American journal of pathology, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 810 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
810 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 1,276 citations in OpenAlex.
- The association between tumor-stromal collagen features and the clinical outcomes of patients with breast cancer: a systematic review.Breast cancer research : BCR · 2025Pooled it
- 3DACS biomaterials science & engineering · 2023Pooled it
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- Mechanical memory as a metastatic compass: a comparative framework for understanding organotropism through biophysical priming.Cancer metastasis reviews · 2026Review
- Collagen I promotes cancer cell survival via amino acid import and mTORC1/S6 activation.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- Machine Learning-Assisted SHG Morphometry Reveals Distinct Collagen Microarchitectures of Trabecular Bone and Fibrosis in Bone Marrow Biopsies.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Article
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- Fibroblast response to burn injury in larval zebrafish mirrors developmental maturation and is inhibited by infiltrating neutrophils.Development (Cambridge, England) · 2026Article
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- Review
- Postpartum breast cancer as a distinct oncologic entity: linking physiological tissue remodelling to tumor biology and clinical translation.Breast cancer research : BCR · 2026Review
- Signaling downstream of tumor-stroma interaction regulates mucinous colorectal adenocarcinoma apicobasal polarity.Nature communications · 2026Article
- YAP-activated lymph node fibroblasts contribute to extracellular matrix remodeling associated with extranodal extension of oral squamous cell carcinoma.The journal of pathology. Clinical research · 2026Article
- Tumor-associated collagen signature in relation to metastasis in lung adenocarcinoma.Journal of thoracic disease · 2026Article
- Label-free volumetric refractive-index imaging of fibrillar collagen architecture, assembly, and cell-associated remodeling.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
750 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 1 institution in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Evidence for the potent influence of stromal organization and function on invasion and metastasis of breast tumors is ever growing. We have performed a rigorous examination of the relationship of a tumor-associated collagen signature-3 (TACS-3) to the long-term survival rate of human patients. TACS-3 is characterized by bundles of straightened and aligned collagen fibers that are oriented perpendicular to the tumor boundary. An evaluation of TACS-3 was performed in biopsied tissue sections from 196 patients by second harmonic generation imaging of the backscattered signal generated by collagen. Univariate analysis of a Cox proportional hazard model demonstrated that the presence of TACS-3 was associated with poor disease-specific and disease-free survival, resulting in hazard ratios between 3.0 and 3.9. Furthermore, TACS-3 was confirmed to be an independent prognostic indicator regardless of tumor grade and size, estrogen or progesterone receptor status, human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 status, node status, and tumor subtype. Interestingly, TACS-3 was positively correlated to expression of stromal syndecan-1, a receptor for several extracellular matrix proteins including collagens. Because of the strong statistical evidence for poor survival in patients with TACS, and because the assessment can be performed in routine histopathological samples imaged via second harmonic generation or using picrosirius, we propose that quantifying collagen alignment is a viable, novel paradigm for the prediction of human breast cancer survival.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.