The State Key Laboratory Breeding Base of Basic Science of Stomatology (Hubei-MOST) & Key Laboratory of Oral Biomedicine Ministry of Education, School & Hospital of Stomatology, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430079, China.
Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430030, China.
Biomed Res Int. 2019 Jul 11;2019:5013592. doi: 10.1155/2019/5013592. eCollection 2019.
Cell fusion is a highly regulated biological process that occurs under both physiological and pathological conditions. The cellular and extracellular environment is critical for the induction of the cell-cell fusion. Aberrant cell fusion is initiated during tumor progression. Tumor microenvironment is a complex dynamic system formed by the interaction between tumor cells and their surrounding cells. Cell-cell fusion mediates direct interaction between tumor cells and their surrounding cells and is associated with tumor initiation and progression. Various microenvironmental factors affect cell fusion in tumor microenvironment and generate hybrids that acquire genomes of both parental cells and exhibit novel characteristics, such as tumor stem cell-like properties, radioresistance, drug resistance, immune evasion, and enhanced migration and invasion abilities, which are closely related to the initiation, invasion, and metastasis of tumor. The phenotypic characteristics of hybrids are based on the phenotypes of parental cells, and the fusion of tumor cells with diverse types of microenvironmental fusogenic cells is concomitant with phenotypic heterogeneity. This review highlights the types of fusogenic cells in tumor microenvironment that can fuse with tumor cells and their specific significance and summarizes the various microenvironmental factors affecting tumor cell fusion. This review may be used as a reference to develop strategies for future research on tumor cell fusion and the exploration of cell fusion-based antitumor therapies.
细胞融合是一种高度受调控的生物学过程，发生在生理和病理条件下。细胞和细胞外环境对于诱导细胞-细胞融合至关重要。异常的细胞融合发生在肿瘤进展过程中。肿瘤微环境是由肿瘤细胞与其周围细胞相互作用形成的复杂动态系统。细胞-细胞融合介导了肿瘤细胞与其周围细胞之间的直接相互作用，并与肿瘤的起始和进展相关。各种微环境因素影响肿瘤微环境中的细胞融合，并产生获得双亲细胞基因组的杂种细胞，表现出新的特性，如肿瘤干细胞样特性、抗辐射、抗药性、免疫逃逸和增强的迁移和侵袭能力，这些特性与肿瘤的起始、侵袭和转移密切相关。杂种细胞的表型特征基于亲代细胞的表型，并且肿瘤细胞与多种类型的微环境融合细胞的融合伴随着表型异质性。本综述强调了肿瘤微环境中能够与肿瘤细胞融合的融合细胞类型及其特定意义，并总结了影响肿瘤细胞融合的各种微环境因素。本综述可作为未来肿瘤细胞融合研究和基于细胞融合的抗肿瘤治疗探索的参考。
