Cellular Heterogeneity of Pancreatic Stellate Cells, Mesenchymal Stem Cells, and Cancer-Associated Fibroblasts in Pancreatic Cancer

Pancreatic cancer is projected to become the second deadliest cancer by 2030 in the United States, and the overall five-year survival rate stands still at around 9%. The stroma compartment can make up more than 90% of the pancreatic tumor mass, contributing to the hypoxic tumor microenvironment. The...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cancers 2020-12, Vol.12 (12), p.3770
Main Authors: Sunami, Yoshiaki, Häußler, Johanna, Kleeff, Jörg
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adipocytes
Angiogenesis
Autophagy
Bone marrow
Breast cancer
Cancer therapies
Cell growth
Chemotherapy
Extracellular matrix
Fibroblasts
Growth factors
Hypoxia
Kinases
Mesenchymal stem cells
Metabolism
Metastasis
Ovarian cancer
Pancreatic cancer
Proteins
Review
Signal transduction
Stellate cells
Stem cells
Stroma
Transcription factors
Tumor necrosis factor-TNF
Tumors
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Pancreatic cancer is projected to become the second deadliest cancer by 2030 in the United States, and the overall five-year survival rate stands still at around 9%. The stroma compartment can make up more than 90% of the pancreatic tumor mass, contributing to the hypoxic tumor microenvironment. The dense stroma with extracellular matrix proteins can be a physical and metabolic barrier reducing therapeutic efficacy. Cancer-associated fibroblasts are a source of extracellular matrix proteins. Therefore, targeting these cells, or extracellular matrix proteins, have been considered as therapeutic strategies. However, several studies show that deletion of cancer-associated fibroblasts may have tumor-promoting effects. Cancer-associated fibroblasts are derived from a variety of different cell types, such as pancreatic stellate cells and mesenchymal stem cells, and constitute a diverse cell population consisting of several functionally heterogeneous subtypes. Several subtypes of cancer-associated fibroblasts exhibit a tumor-restraining function. This review article summarizes recent findings regarding origin and functional heterogeneity of tumor-promoting as well as tumor-restraining cancer-associated fibroblasts. A better understanding of cancer-associated fibroblast heterogeneity could provide more specific and personalized therapies for pancreatic cancer patients in the future.
ISSN:2072-6694
2072-6694
DOI:10.3390/cancers12123770