Morris Rachel M, Mortimer Toni O, O'Neill Kim L
Department of Microbiology and Molecular Biology, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602, USA.
Cancers (Basel). 2022 Apr 27;14(9):2178. doi: 10.3390/cancers14092178.
Cytokines are small molecular messengers that have profound effects on cancer development. Increasing evidence shows that cytokines are heavily involved in regulating both pro- and antitumor activities, such as immune activation and suppression, inflammation, cell damage, angiogenesis, cancer stem-cell-like cell maintenance, invasion, and metastasis. Cytokines are often required to drive these cancer-related processes and, therefore, represent an important research area for understanding cancer development and the potential identification of novel therapeutic targets. Interestingly, some cytokines are reported to be related to both pro- and anti-tumorigenicity, indicating that cytokines may play several complex roles relating to cancer pathogenesis. In this review, we discuss some major cancer-related processes and their relationship with several cytokines.
细胞因子是一类小分子信使，对癌症发展具有深远影响。越来越多的证据表明，细胞因子在调节促肿瘤和抗肿瘤活性方面发挥着重要作用，例如免疫激活与抑制、炎症、细胞损伤、血管生成、癌症干细胞样细胞维持、侵袭和转移。细胞因子通常是驱动这些癌症相关过程所必需的，因此，它是理解癌症发展以及潜在识别新治疗靶点的一个重要研究领域。有趣的是，据报道一些细胞因子与促肿瘤和抗肿瘤特性均相关，这表明细胞因子在癌症发病机制中可能发挥多种复杂作用。在本综述中，我们讨论了一些主要的癌症相关过程及其与几种细胞因子的关系。
