Ouellette Jonathan N, Drifka Cole R, Pointer Kelli B, Liu Yuming, Lieberthal Tyler J, Kao W John, Kuo John S, Loeffler Agnes G, Eliceiri Kevin W
Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA.
Laboratory for Optical and Computational Instrumentation, Center for Quantitative Cell Imaging, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA.
Bioengineering (Basel). 2021 Jan 21;8(2):17. doi: 10.3390/bioengineering8020017.
Recent research has highlighted the importance of key tumor microenvironment features, notably the collagen-rich extracellular matrix (ECM) in characterizing tumor invasion and progression. This led to great interest from both basic researchers and clinicians, including pathologists, to include collagen fiber evaluation as part of the investigation of cancer development and progression. Fibrillar collagen is the most abundant in the normal extracellular matrix, and was revealed to be upregulated in many cancers. Recent studies suggested an emerging theme across multiple cancer types in which specific collagen fiber organization patterns differ between benign and malignant tissue and also appear to be associated with disease stage, prognosis, treatment response, and other clinical features. There is great potential for developing image-based collagen fiber biomarkers for clinical applications, but its adoption in standard clinical practice is dependent on further translational and clinical evaluations. Here, we offer a comprehensive review of the current literature of fibrillar collagen structure and organization as a candidate cancer biomarker, and new perspectives on the challenges and next steps for researchers and clinicians seeking to exploit this information in biomedical research and clinical workflows.
最近的研究突出了关键肿瘤微环境特征的重要性,特别是富含胶原蛋白的细胞外基质(ECM)在表征肿瘤侵袭和进展方面的作用。这引起了基础研究人员和临床医生(包括病理学家)的极大兴趣,他们将胶原纤维评估纳入癌症发生和进展的研究中。纤维状胶原蛋白在正常细胞外基质中含量最为丰富,并且在许多癌症中被发现上调。最近的研究表明,多种癌症类型中出现了一个新趋势,即良性和恶性组织之间特定的胶原纤维组织模式不同,而且似乎还与疾病阶段、预后、治疗反应及其他临床特征相关。开发基于图像的胶原纤维生物标志物用于临床应用具有很大潜力,但其在标准临床实践中的应用取决于进一步的转化和临床评估。在此,我们全面综述了作为候选癌症生物标志物的纤维状胶原蛋白结构和组织的当前文献,并为寻求在生物医学研究和临床工作流程中利用这些信息的研究人员和临床医生提供了关于挑战及下一步措施的新观点。