Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Pharmacology and Safety Evaluation of Chinese Materia Medica, School of Pharmacy, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing 210023, China.
Jiangsu Joint International Research Laboratory of Chinese Medicine and Regenerative Medicine, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing 210023, China.
Int J Biol Sci. 2024 Jan 21;20(3):1110-1124. doi: 10.7150/ijbs.87680. eCollection 2024.
At present, tumor metastasis still remains the leading contributor to high recurrence and mortality in cancer patients. There have been no clinically effective therapeutic strategies for treating patients with metastatic cancer. In recent years, a growing body of evidence has shown that the pre-metastatic niche (PMN) plays a crucial role in driving tumor metastasis. Nevertheless, a clear and detailed understanding of the formation of PMN is still lacking given the fact that PMN formation involves in a wealth of complicated communications and underlying mechanisms between primary tumors and metastatic target organs. Despite that the roles of numerous components including tumor exosomes and extracellular vesicles in influencing the evolution of PMN have been well documented, the involvement of cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) in the tumor microenvironment for controlling PMN formation is frequently overlooked. It has been increasingly recognized that fibroblasts trigger the formation of PMN by virtue of modulating exosomes, metabolism and so on. In this review, we mainly summarize the underlying mechanisms of fibroblasts from diverse origins in exerting impacts on PMN evolution, and further highlight the prospective strategies for targeting fibroblasts to prevent PMN formation.
目前，肿瘤转移仍然是导致癌症患者高复发和高死亡率的主要原因。临床上还没有有效的治疗转移性癌症患者的策略。近年来，越来越多的证据表明，肿瘤转移前生态位（PMN）在驱动肿瘤转移中起着关键作用。然而，由于 PMN 的形成涉及到原发肿瘤和转移靶器官之间大量复杂的通信和潜在机制，因此对 PMN 形成的认识还不够清楚和详细。尽管肿瘤外泌体和细胞外囊泡等众多成分在影响 PMN 演变中的作用已得到充分证实，但肿瘤微环境中的癌症相关成纤维细胞（CAF）在控制 PMN 形成中的作用经常被忽视。人们越来越认识到，成纤维细胞通过调节外泌体、代谢等触发 PMN 的形成。在这篇综述中，我们主要总结了不同来源的成纤维细胞在影响 PMN 进化中的潜在机制，并进一步强调了靶向成纤维细胞以防止 PMN 形成的潜在策略。
