The role of cancer-associated fibroblasts in the invasion and metastasis of colorectal cancer

Front Cell Dev Biol. 2024 Jul 30:12:1375543. doi: 10.3389/fcell.2024.1375543. eCollection 2024.

Abstract

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common cancer and has ranked the third leading cause in cancerassociated death globally. Metastasis is the leading cause of death in colorectal cancer patients. The role of tumor microenvironment (TME) in colorectal cancer metastasis has received increasing attention. As the most abundant cell type in the TME of solid tumors, cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) have been demonstrated to have multiple functions in advancing tumor growth and metastasis. They can remodel the extracellular matrix (ECM) architecture, promote epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), and interact with cancer cells or other stromal cells by secreting growth factors, cytokines, chemokines, and exosomes, facilitating tumor cell invasion into TME and contributing to distant metastasis. This article aims to analyze the sources and heterogeneity of CAFs in CRC, as well as their role in invasion and metastasis, in order to provide new insights into the metastasis mechanism of CRC and its clinical applications.

Keywords: cancer-associated fibroblasts; colorectal cancer; heterogeneity; invasion; metastasis.

Publication types

  • Review

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This research was financially supported by the 2020 Guangdong Provincial Science and Technology Innovation Strategy Special Fund (Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Joint Lab, 2020B1212030006), Guangdong Provincial key research and development program (2020B1111100010), Guangzhou Science and Technology Planning Project (202201020288), The project of Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Clinical Research on Traditional Chinese Medicine Syndrome (2023KT15492), Special Project of State Key Laboratory of Dampness Syndrome of Chinese Medicine (SZ2021ZZ13), Science and Technology Planning Project of Guangdong Province (2023B1212060063), National Natural Science Foundation of China (81971742).