Department of Tumor Biology, Institute of Cancer Research, Oslo University Hospital, Norway.
Department of Clinical Molecular Biology (EpiGen), Akershus University Hospital, Oslo, Norway.
Mol Oncol. 2018 Sep;12(9):1540-1558. doi: 10.1002/1878-0261.12319. Epub 2018 Aug 9.
The tumor microenvironment (TME) may influence both cancer progression and therapeutic response. In breast cancer, particularly in the aggressive triple-negative/basal-like subgroup, patient outcome is strongly associated with the tumor's inflammatory profile. Tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) are among the most abundant immune cells in the TME, shown to be linked to poor prognosis and therapeutic resistance. In this study, we investigated the effect of the metastasis- and inflammation-associated microenvironmental factor S100A4 on breast cancer cells (BCCs) of different subtypes and explored their further interactions with myeloid cells. We demonstrated that extracellular S100A4 activates BCCs, particularly the basal-like subtype, to elevate secretion of pro-inflammatory cytokines. The secreted factors promoted conversion of monocytes to TAM-like cells that exhibited protumorigenic activities: stimulated epithelial-mesenchymal transition, proliferation, chemoresistance, and motility in cancer cells. In conclusion, we have shown that extracellular S100A4 instigates a tumor-supportive microenvironment, involving a network of cytokines and TAM-like cells, which was particularly characteristic for basal-like BCCs and potentiated their aggressive properties. The S100A4-BCC-TAM interaction cascade could be an important contributor to the aggressive behavior of this subtype and should be further explored for therapeutic targeting.
肿瘤微环境(TME)可能会影响癌症的进展和治疗反应。在乳腺癌中,特别是在侵袭性三阴性/基底样亚组中,患者的预后与肿瘤的炎症特征密切相关。肿瘤相关巨噬细胞(TAMs)是 TME 中最丰富的免疫细胞之一,与不良预后和治疗耐药性有关。在这项研究中,我们研究了转移和炎症相关的微环境因子 S100A4 对不同亚型乳腺癌细胞(BCCs)的影响,并探讨了它们与髓样细胞的进一步相互作用。我们证明细胞外 S100A4 激活 BCCs,特别是基底样亚型,以提高促炎细胞因子的分泌。分泌的因子促进单核细胞向具有促肿瘤活性的 TAM 样细胞转化:刺激上皮-间充质转化、癌细胞增殖、化疗耐药性和迁移。总之,我们已经表明,细胞外 S100A4 引发了一个支持肿瘤的微环境,涉及细胞因子和 TAM 样细胞网络,这对基底样 BCCs 尤为典型,并增强了它们的侵袭性特征。S100A4-BCC-TAM 相互作用级联可能是该亚型侵袭性行为的重要贡献者,应进一步探索其治疗靶向性。