Huang L, Xu AM, Liu S, Liu W, Li TJ. Cancer-associated fibroblasts in digestive tumors. World J Gastroenterol 2014; 20(47): 17804-17818 [PMID: 25548479 DOI: 10.3748/wjg.v20.i47.17804]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Lei Huang, MD, Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, No. 218 Jixi Road, Hefei 230022, Anhui Province, China. huangleizhenting@126.com
Research Domain of This Article
Oncology
Article-Type of This Article
Review
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Gastroenterol. Dec 21, 2014; 20(47): 17804-17818 Published online Dec 21, 2014. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v20.i47.17804
Cancer-associated fibroblasts in digestive tumors
Lei Huang, A-Man Xu, Sha Liu, Wei Liu, Tuan-Jie Li
Lei Huang, A-Man Xu, Tuan-Jie Li, Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei 230022, Anhui Province, China
Lei Huang, Wei Liu, Tuan-Jie Li, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Liver Disease Research, the Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510630, Guangdong Province, China
Sha Liu, Department of Medical Oncology, the First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei 230022, Anhui Province, China
Wei Liu, Liver Transplantation Center, the Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510630, Guangdong Province, China
Author contributions: Huang L, Xu AM, Liu S and Liu W designed the research; Huang L and Li TJ performed the research; Huang L wrote the paper; Xu AM, Liu S, Liu W and Li TJ critically reviewed the paper; Huang L, Xu AM and Liu S critically revised the paper.
Correspondence to: Lei Huang, MD, Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, No. 218 Jixi Road, Hefei 230022, Anhui Province, China. huangleizhenting@126.com
Telephone: +86-551-65334247 Fax: +86-551-63633742
Received: April 5, 2014 Revised: June 22, 2014 Accepted: July 11, 2014 Published online: December 21, 2014
Core Tip
Core tip: As a dominant component in tumor stroma, cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) promote tumorigenesis, and tumor progression by stimulating angiogenesis, malignant cell survival, epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and proliferation via direct cell-to-cell contact or secretion of soluble factors in most digestive solid tumors. CAFs are characterized by the expression of α-smooth muscle actin, fibroblast activated protein, fibroblast specific protein, vimentin, etc. They are hypothesized to originate from various cells. EMT may also be an important process generating CAFs. A close link exists between CAFs-induced EMT, chemo-resistance of tumor cells, and tumor stem cells. CAFs significantly induce immunosuppression, and may be a prognostic marker. Targeted therapy toward CAFs has displayed promising anticancer efficacy.
