Department of Pathology, State Key Laboratory of Tumor Biology, Xijing Hospital, Fourth Military Medical University, Xi'an, Shaanxi, People's Republic of China.
Pharmacol Ther. 2013 Feb;137(2):200-15. doi: 10.1016/j.pharmthera.2012.10.003. Epub 2012 Oct 12.
Cancer is not only composed malignant epithelial component but also stromal components such as fibroblasts, endothelial cells, and inflammatory cells, by which an appropriate tumor microenvironment (TME) is formed to promote tumorigenesis, progression, and metastasis. As the most abundant component in the TME, cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) are involved in multifaceted mechanistic details including remodeling the extracellular matrix, suppressing immune responses, and secreting growth factors and cytokines that mediate signaling pathways to extensively affect tumor cell growth and invasiveness, differentiation, angiogenesis, and chronic inflammatory milieu. Today, more and more therapeutic strategies are purposefully designed to target the TME as well as tumor cells. This review will focus on the role of CAFs in tumor development and the novel strategies to target this component to inhibit the tumor growth.
癌症不仅由恶性上皮成分组成，还包括成纤维细胞、内皮细胞和炎性细胞等基质成分，通过这些成分形成适当的肿瘤微环境（TME）来促进肿瘤的发生、进展和转移。作为 TME 中最丰富的成分，癌相关成纤维细胞（CAFs）参与了多方面的机制细节，包括重塑细胞外基质、抑制免疫反应以及分泌生长因子和细胞因子，这些因子介导信号通路，广泛影响肿瘤细胞的生长和侵袭性、分化、血管生成和慢性炎症环境。如今，越来越多的治疗策略旨在靶向 TME 以及肿瘤细胞。本文将重点讨论 CAFs 在肿瘤发展中的作用，以及靶向这一成分抑制肿瘤生长的新策略。
