Li Yutong, Hamad Mawieh, Elkord Eyad
Department of Biosciences and Bioinformatics & Suzhou Municipal Key Lab of Biomedical Sciences and Translational Immunology, School of Science, Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Suzhou, China.
College of Health Sciences, University of Sharjah, P.O. Box 27272, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates.
Hepatol Int. 2025 Apr;19(2):325-336. doi: 10.1007/s12072-025-10788-5. Epub 2025 Feb 20.
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the common malignant cancers worldwide. Although immunotherapy has improved the treatment outcome in HCC, a significant percentage of patients with advanced HCC still cannot benefit from immunotherapy. Therefore, developing new targets or combination therapeutic strategies to improve the efficacy of immunotherapy is urgently needed. A deeper understanding of the mechanisms underlying immune regulation may help in this regard. The tumor microenvironment (TME) consists of a diverse set of components modulating the efficacy of immunotherapy. Cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) are critical components of the TME and can regulate both tumor and immune cells through secreted cytokines and exosomes that impact various signaling pathways in target cells. CAF-derived cytokines can also participate in extracellular matrix (ECM) remodeling, thereby impacting cancer progression and tumor responsiveness to immunotherapy among other effects. A thorough understanding of the phenotypic and functional profile dynamism of CAFs may lead the way for new treatment strategies and/or better treatment outcomes in HCC patients. In this review, we outline the biomarkers and functional heterogeneity of CAFs in HCC and elaborate on molecular mechanisms of CAFs, including anti-programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1)/PD-ligand 1 (PD-L1) immunotherapy. We also examine current clinical implications of CAFs-related targets as potential therapeutic candidates in HCC.
肝细胞癌(HCC)是全球常见的恶性肿瘤之一。尽管免疫疗法改善了HCC的治疗效果,但仍有相当比例的晚期HCC患者无法从免疫疗法中获益。因此,迫切需要开发新的靶点或联合治疗策略以提高免疫疗法的疗效。深入了解免疫调节的潜在机制在这方面可能会有所帮助。肿瘤微环境(TME)由多种调节免疫疗法疗效的成分组成。癌症相关成纤维细胞(CAFs)是TME的关键成分,可通过分泌影响靶细胞各种信号通路的细胞因子和外泌体来调节肿瘤细胞和免疫细胞。CAF衍生的细胞因子还可参与细胞外基质(ECM)重塑,从而影响癌症进展以及肿瘤对免疫疗法的反应等。全面了解CAFs的表型和功能特征动态变化可能为HCC患者的新治疗策略和/或更好的治疗结果指明方向。在本综述中,我们概述了HCC中CAFs的生物标志物和功能异质性,并阐述了CAFs的分子机制,包括抗程序性细胞死亡蛋白1(PD-1)/PD-配体1(PD-L1)免疫疗法。我们还研究了CAFs相关靶点作为HCC潜在治疗候选物的当前临床意义。
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