The Immune Microenvironment and Cancer Metastasis

Overview

Journal Cold Spring Harb Perspect Med

Specialty General Medicine

Date 2019 Sep 11

PMID 31501262

Citations 52

Authors

Asmaa El-Kenawi

Kay Hanggi

Brian Ruffell

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The dynamic interplay between neoplastic cells and the immune microenvironment regulates every step of the metastatic process. Immune cells contribute to invasion by secreting a cornucopia of inflammatory factors that promote epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition and remodeling of the stroma. Cancer cells then intravasate to the circulatory system assisted by macrophages and use several pathways to avoid recognition by cytotoxtic lymphocytes and phagocytes. Circulating tumor cells that manage to adhere to the vasculature and encounter premetastic niches are able to use the associated myeloid cells to extravasate into ectopic organs and establish a dormant microscopic colony. If successful at avoiding repetitive immune attack, dormant cells can subsequently grow into overt, clinically detectable metastatic lesions, which ultimately account to most cancer-related deaths. Understanding how disseminated tumor cells evade and corrupt the immune system during the final stages of metastasis will be pivotal in developing new therapeutic modalities that combat metastasis.

Citing Articles

Unveiling a novel model of cell senescence-related genes for prognostic assessment and immunotherapeutic insights in gastric cancer.

Wang G, Wang Y, Xiao Y, Lin Z Sci Rep. 2025; 15(1):5251.

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Breaking boundaries: role of the brain barriers in metastatic process.

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Crosstalk Between Cancer-associated Fibroblasts and Myeloid Cells Shapes the Heterogeneous Microenvironment of Gastric Cancer.

Peng Z, Fang C, Tong Z, Rao Q, Ren Z, Hu K Curr Genomics. 2024; 25(5):390-411.

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CCL5 promotes the epithelial-mesenchymal transition of circulating tumor cells in renal cancer.

Guan Y, Liu X, Tian J, Yang G, Xu F, Guo N J Transl Med. 2024; 22(1):817.

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Ji F, Qian H, Sun Z, Yang Y, Shi M, Gu H Discov Oncol. 2024; 15(1):372.

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