Su Zhi Yi, Siak Pui Yan, Leong Chee-Onn, Cheah Shiau-Chuen
Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, UCSI University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Centre of Cancer and Stem Cells Research, International Medical University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Front Oncol. 2022 Mar 2;12:840467. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2022.840467. eCollection 2022.
Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is an epithelial malignancy that raises public health concerns in endemic countries. Despite breakthroughs in therapeutic strategies, late diagnosis and drug resistance often lead to unsatisfactory clinical outcomes in NPC patients. The tumor microenvironment (TME) is a complex niche consisting of tumor-associated cells, such as fibroblasts, endothelial cells, leukocytes, that influences tumor initiation, progression, invasion, and metastasis. Cells in the TME communicate through various mechanisms, of note, exosomes, ligand-receptor interactions, cytokines and chemokines are active players in the construction of TME, characterized by an abundance of immune infiltrates with suppressed immune activities. The NPC microenvironment serves as a target-rich niche for the discovery of potential promising predictive or diagnostic biomarkers and the development of therapeutic strategies. Thus, huge efforts have been made to exploit the role of the NPC microenvironment. The whole picture of the NPC microenvironment remains to be portrayed to understand the mechanisms underlying tumor biology and implement research into clinical practice. The current review discusses the recent insights into the role of TME in the development and progression of NPC which results in different clinical outcomes of patients. Clinical interventions with the use of TME components as potential biomarkers or therapeutic targets, their challenges, and future perspectives will be introduced. This review anticipates to provide insights to the researchers for future preclinical, translational and clinical research on the NPC microenvironment.
鼻咽癌（NPC）是一种上皮性恶性肿瘤，在流行国家引起了公众对健康问题的关注。尽管治疗策略取得了突破，但晚期诊断和耐药性常常导致鼻咽癌患者的临床结局不尽人意。肿瘤微环境（TME）是一个复杂的生态位，由肿瘤相关细胞组成，如成纤维细胞、内皮细胞、白细胞，它影响肿瘤的起始、进展、侵袭和转移。TME中的细胞通过各种机制进行通讯，值得注意的是，外泌体、配体-受体相互作用、细胞因子和趋化因子是TME构建中的活跃参与者，其特征是大量免疫浸润且免疫活性受到抑制。鼻咽癌微环境是发现潜在有前景的预测或诊断生物标志物以及开发治疗策略的富含靶点的生态位。因此，人们已经做出了巨大努力来探索鼻咽癌微环境的作用。鼻咽癌微环境的全貌仍有待描绘，以了解肿瘤生物学的潜在机制并将研究应用于临床实践。本综述讨论了关于TME在鼻咽癌发生发展中作用的最新见解，这导致了患者不同的临床结局。将介绍以TME成分作为潜在生物标志物或治疗靶点的临床干预措施、它们面临的挑战以及未来前景。本综述期望为研究人员在鼻咽癌微环境的未来临床前、转化和临床研究方面提供见解。
