肿瘤微环境与肿瘤耐药的研究进展

Research advances of the tumor microenvironment and its pathological influences on development of disease resistance

恶性肿瘤是严重威胁人类健康的头号杀手,在全球范围导致的死亡人数正逐年增加。其病灶不仅包括癌细胞,还涉及相当数量的良性细胞群和非细胞组分,如胞外基质、生长因子、细胞因子、趋化因子及脉管系统等。即便经过治疗,患者死亡率仍长期居高不下,一个重要原因就是癌细胞已经获得耐药性。研究表明,肿瘤微环境——一个曾经被医学界遗忘的角落——在疾病的发展中起到了举足轻重的作用,尤其与耐药性形成有着千丝万缕的关系。就这一国际热点话题对当前进展进行概述,重点介绍肿瘤微环境诱导疾病耐药的几种途径,并展望将来临床实践中应当具备的核心理念和亟需掌握的技术要点。

Nowadays malignant tumor is the first leading cause of mortality that threatens human health and the number of lives it claims per year is still on the rise. The disease foci usually include not only cancer cells, but numerous benign cell populations and non-cell components such as extracellular matrix, growth factors, cytokines, chemokines and neo-vasculatures. Even upon clinical regimes, the mortality remains high among multiple pathologies, and one of the major hidden reasons is the fact that cancer cells become resistant against treatments. The tumor microenvironment, a biologically active niche that used to he forgotten by modern medicine for years, plays an indispensable role in disease progression, and in particular, it is closely linked to cancer resistance. In this brief review, we summarize the recent advances in such a hotspot area by introducing the most common functional angles through which the tumor microenvironment induces development of resistance, and by providing outlooks for the central concepts and critical techniques that should be considered and favored in future clinical oncology.