Role of CSF-1 in progression of epithelial ovarian cancer

Abstract

Despite the dismal outcome seen in the majority of epithelial ovarian cancer patients, there is ongoing progress in understanding the disease at a molecular level. Elucidation of pathways underlying disease progression and metastasis of ovarian cancer is key to development of targeted therapeutics. It is only in this way that therapeutic potential can be translated to reality. Here, we describe the evidence to date for the role of CSF-1/c-fms signaling in ovarian cancer invasiveness and metastasis, including the recent understanding of how CSF-1/c-fms expression is regulated with identification of significant post-transcriptional regulators.

Figure 1. CSF-1-stimulated activation of cancer cells parallels that of differentiation and activation of macrophages and osteoclasts

The metastatic cancer cells, macrophages, osteoclasts and their precursors all express c-fms and are responsive to CSF-1. CFU-M: Colony forming unit-macrophage; CSF-1: Macrophage colony-stimulating factor.