Elastic Cytomatrix Dynamics Influences Metabolic Rate and Tumor Microenvironment Formation

In healthy cells, the cytomatrix mechanics utilize mitochondrial respiration to control cytosolic motion and fine-tune the chemical processes. In cancer, the cytosolic motion is energized by glycolytic fermentation (the Warburg effect), which provides additional energy to supply the needs of the cytomatrix. Here, we describe the physical and chemical processes of the integrated and cooperative cytomatrix cytoarchitecture, in which structure and function are inseparable. The extracellular matrix is interconnected with the intracellular cytomatrix and functions as two integrated elastic solid phases. This finding led us to propose mechanisms of tumor microenvironment formation resulting from the mutational burden, in which altered proteins with corresponding post-translational modifications translocate to the cell surface, where they attract immunocompetent cells and activated fibroblasts, producing a tumor-insulating niche. This insulation disrupts cell-to-cell recognition and other signaling pathways that affect the intracellular cytomatrix, particularly actin dynamics, which influence both cell size and shape, recognized as the dedifferentiated state of cancer cells. We also discuss the perspectives of AI in cytomatrix modeling and neural network modeling, focusing on the effects of intracellular and extracellular matrices on the development of the tumor microenvironment.