Modulating secreted components of tumor microenvironment: A masterstroke in tumor therapeutics

Abstract

The microenvironment in which cancer resides plays an important role in regulating cancer survival, progression, malignancy and drug resistance. Tumor microenvironment (TME) consists of heterogeneous number and types of cellular and non-cellular components that vary in relation to tumor phenotype and genotype. In recent, non-cellular secreted components of microenvironmental heterogeneity have been suggested to contain various growth factors, cytokines, RNA, DNA, metabolites, structural matrix and matricellular proteins. These non-cellular components have been indicated to orchestrate numerous ways to support cancer survival and progression by providing metabolites, energy, growth signals, evading immune surveillance, drug resistance environment, metastatic and angiogenesis cues. Thus, switching action from pro-cancer to anti-cancer activities of these secreted components of TME has been considered as a new avenue in cancer therapeutics and drug resistance. In this report, we summarize the recent pre-clinical and clinical evidences to emphasize the importance of non-cellular components of TME in achieving precision therapeutics and biomarker study.