Favaro Elena, Amadori Alberto, Indraccolo Stefano
Department of Oncology and Surgical Sciences, Oncology Section, University of Padova, Padova, Italy.
APMIS. 2008 Jul-Aug;116(7-8):648-59. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-0463.2008.01025.x.
Angiogenesis plays an established role in the promotion of growth of dormant micrometastasis, because blood vessels deliver oxygen and nutrients to the tumor microenvironment. In addition to this feeding function, however, there is accumulating evidence suggesting that endothelial cells-and perhaps other cellular components of the microenvironment--could communicate both positive and negative signals to tumor cells. This cross-talk between heterogeneous cell types could turn out to be important in the regulation of cancer cell behavior. Normal cells recruited during the angiogenic process, or attracted to future sites of metastasis by soluble products released by cancer cells, have been shown to create a niche favorable to tumor cell proliferation and survival. In addition, following an exogenous angiogenic spike, as may occur during inflammation, the same mechanisms could lead to re-activation of poorly angiogenic tumor cells seeded into tissues. In this review, we discuss the possible implications of this hypothesis for our understanding of the phenomenon of tumor dormancy.
血管生成在促进休眠微转移灶生长方面发挥着既定作用，因为血管为肿瘤微环境输送氧气和营养物质。然而，除了这种滋养功能外，越来越多的证据表明内皮细胞——也许还有微环境中的其他细胞成分——可以向肿瘤细胞传递正性和负性信号。这种异质细胞类型之间的相互作用可能在调节癌细胞行为方面很重要。血管生成过程中募集的正常细胞，或被癌细胞释放的可溶性产物吸引到未来转移部位的细胞，已被证明会形成有利于肿瘤细胞增殖和存活的微环境。此外，在炎症等过程中可能发生的外源性血管生成激增之后，相同的机制可能导致植入组织中的低血管生成肿瘤细胞重新激活。在这篇综述中，我们讨论了这一假说对于我们理解肿瘤休眠现象可能产生的影响。
