Samata m. Kakkad1, Meiyappan Solaiyappan1, Kristine Glunde1, Brian ORourke2, Arvind Pathak1, Venu Raman1, Marie-France Penet1, Zaver M. Bhujwalla1
1JHU ICMIC Program, The Russell H. Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA; 2Institute of Molecular Cardiobiology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA
The tumor microenvironment plays an important role in several of the phenotypic traits of cancer. Hypoxia, in particular, leads to drug resistance, radiation resistance, and the selection of a more aggressive phenotype. The relationship between hypoxia, and the transport of macromolecules through the interstitial matrix in vivo is largely unexplored. The purpose of these studies was to determine if hypoxia alters the interstitial fluid transport of macromolecules by altering collagen fiber patterns.