TY - JOUR
T1 - Complexity in the tumour microenvironment
T2 - Cancer associated fibroblast gene expression patterns identify both common and unique features of tumour-stroma crosstalk across cancer types
AU - Gandellini, Paolo
AU - Andriani, Francesca
AU - Merlino, Giuseppe
AU - D'Aiuto, Francesca
AU - Roz, Luca
AU - Callari, Maurizio
PY - 2015/12/1
Y1 - 2015/12/1
N2 - Cancer is a complex disease, driven by the accumulation of several somatic aberrations but fostered by a two-way interaction between tumour cells and the surrounding microenvironment. Cancer associated fibroblasts (CAFs) represent one of the major players in tumour-stroma crosstalk. Recent in vitro and in vivo studies, often conducted by employing high throughput approaches, have started unravelling the key pathways involved in their functional effects. This review focus on open challenges in the study of CAF properties and function, highlighting at the same time the existence of common mechanisms as well as peculiarities in different cancer types (breast, prostate and lung cancer). Although still limited by current experimental models, which are unable to deal with the full level of complexity of the tumour microenvironment, a better understanding of these mechanisms may enable the identification of new biomarkers and therapeutic targets, to improve current strategies for cancer diagnosis and treatment.
AB - Cancer is a complex disease, driven by the accumulation of several somatic aberrations but fostered by a two-way interaction between tumour cells and the surrounding microenvironment. Cancer associated fibroblasts (CAFs) represent one of the major players in tumour-stroma crosstalk. Recent in vitro and in vivo studies, often conducted by employing high throughput approaches, have started unravelling the key pathways involved in their functional effects. This review focus on open challenges in the study of CAF properties and function, highlighting at the same time the existence of common mechanisms as well as peculiarities in different cancer types (breast, prostate and lung cancer). Although still limited by current experimental models, which are unable to deal with the full level of complexity of the tumour microenvironment, a better understanding of these mechanisms may enable the identification of new biomarkers and therapeutic targets, to improve current strategies for cancer diagnosis and treatment.
KW - Breast cancer
KW - Cancer associated fibroblasts (CAF)
KW - Gene expression
KW - Inter-disease
KW - Lung cancer
KW - Prostate cancer
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U2 - 10.1016/j.semcancer.2015.08.008
DO - 10.1016/j.semcancer.2015.08.008
M3 - Article
C2 - 26320408
AN - SCOPUS:84948716649
VL - 35
SP - 96
EP - 106
JO - Seminars in Cancer Biology
JF - Seminars in Cancer Biology
SN - 1044-579X
ER -