According to this article, "Angiogenesis is stimulated when tumor tissues require nutrients and oxygen" (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1993983/).
But according to the Molecular Cell BIology Book (Lodish et a., 2012, 7th edition), cancer cells will always rely on glycolysis (Warburg effect) regardless of whether oxygen is available in high or low quantities.
Why would then a cancer cell need to trigger vessel formation and therefore oxygen transportation if they are designed to constitutively perform glycolysis?
Dear Paolo,
This is a good question.Though a lot of work has been done with regard to cancer metastasis,a lot more needs to be understood.
One theory apart from the nutrients required,angiogeneis occurs as a part of enhanced survival of the tumor further allowing the enhanced signalling with the surrounding niche/microenvironment.
The cancer cells produce a lot of proangiogenic cytokines/chemokins(VEGF,TGF-beta,Angiopoietins,MMPs etc) which force the recruitment of the endothelial cells and their differentiation into tubules and thus results in angiogenesis.
Forming capillaries with the existing vasculature maybe required for a few cancerous cells to move into the organs and further metastasize apart from the nutritional requirement derived by the cancer cells from the surrounding organs along with their own Warburg effect even though the rate of glycolysis is more than 200 times from the normal cells.
http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/understandingcancer/angiogenesis/AllPages
Hope this helps.
When cancer cells decide to form a mass or to survive, the need to establish strong ground for them to confirm nutrients supply and formation of many types of resistance against body response. Angiogenesis is one of those requirement that cancer need to establish itself. Blood vessels will offer a rout for nutrition and also a way for escaping to move to other parts and to make a mechanical barrier that can protect cancer mass from outside pressures.
Blood vessels bring other things; not only oxygen. For instance, glucose.
Without blood vessels most tumors can not grow beyond 2mm2. The tumor mass can no longer be sustained through diffusion. For long term survival it is therefore necessary for tumors to establish blood vessels. It is for this reason that cancer cells produce lots of angiogenic factors like VEGF, FGF etc to recruit blood vessels.
Most tumors are associated with tumor promoting immune cells where blood vessels bring these cells right into tumors. Mainly for cytokine signals.
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