The Tumour Microenvironment: Stroma, Hypoxia and Immune Exclusion · seed 1 · A4, ink-friendly. The answer key prints on its own page for grown-ups.

The tumour as a hostile neighborhood

Science · Organisms & Life Processes · ages 22-24
Name ______________________   Date ____________

  1. What does hypoxia do to tumour cells?

    • It flips survival switches, slows division, and hardens cells against treatment
    • It floods the core with extra drug
    • It permanently freezes all gene expression

  2. What is the tumour microenvironment?

    • Only the cancer cells floating in isolation
    • The tumour tissue: cancer cells plus stroma, vessels, and immune cells
    • The plastic dish the cells grow in

  3. Stromal cells must carry driver mutations to support tumour growth.

    Circle one:   True   False

  4. A drug melts tumour cells in a dish but fails in a patient. What best explains it?

    • The dish cells were a different species
    • Poor delivery through stroma plus hypoxia hardened cores
    • The drug evaporated before injection

  5. Killers crowd the rim but never enter the core. How do you classify this tumour?

    • Fully infiltrated and ready for a cure
    • Free of any immune involvement
    • Immune excluded, held out by matrix and suppressor cells

  6. Which tumour is more likely to shrink once immune brakes lift?

    • One already packed with killer cells in its core
    • One with no vessels and no cells at all
    • One walled off behind dense matrix

  7. Suppressor cells and dense matrix ring a tumour. What combined effect do you predict?

    • Attackers flood in and drugs penetrate freely
    • Entry is blocked and calming signals blunt the attack
    • The tumour starves itself within days

  8. A colleague doses by dish kill curves alone. What is the flaw?

    • Dish curves always overestimate toxicity
    • Dish cells divide too slowly to matter
    • Dishes lack the gradients and barricades that decide delivery in tissue
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Answer key

For grown-ups. Fold this page away before handing over the rest.

The tumour as a hostile neighborhood W1-mt_OIrMAjomX_-s1

  1. It flips survival switches, slows division, and hardens cells against treatment · Low oxygen rewires programs toward rough vessels and tough survival states.
  2. The tumour tissue: cancer cells plus stroma, vessels, and immune cells · A tumour is a tissue, and its neighbors change how it grows.
  3. False · Stromal partners feed and shield the tumour without mutating themselves.
  4. Poor delivery through stroma plus hypoxia hardened cores · Starved cores receive little drug, and slow dividers resist treatment.
  5. Immune excluded, held out by matrix and suppressor cells · Exclusion means attackers are walled off at the rim.
  6. One already packed with killer cells in its core · Pre existing attackers inside can act once the brakes come off.
  7. Entry is blocked and calming signals blunt the attack · Barricades plus calming signals produce the excluded pattern.
  8. Dishes lack the gradients and barricades that decide delivery in tissue · The neighbourhood votes first, so tissue context must enter the prediction.
Worksheet · LightMySky