The Case for Cancer-associated Fibroblasts: Essential Elements in Cancer Drug Discovery?

Overview

Journal Future Drug Discov

Date 2022 May 23

PMID 35600290

Authors

Gabrielle Brewer

Anne-Marie Fortier

Morag Park

Christopher Moraes

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Although cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) have gained increased attention for supporting cancer progression, current CAF-targeted therapeutic options are limited and failing in clinical trials. As the largest component of the tumor microenvironment (TME), CAFs alter the biochemical and physical structure of the TME, modulating cancer progression. Here, we review the role of CAFs in altering drug response, modifying the TME mechanics and the current models for studying CAFs. To provide new perspectives, we highlight key considerations of CAF activity and discuss emerging technologies that can better address CAFs; and therefore, increase the likelihood of therapeutic efficacy. We argue that CAFs are crucial components of the cancer drug discovery pipeline and incorporating these cells will improve drug discovery success rates.

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