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Review
. 2014 Apr 1;46(7):223-44.
doi: 10.1152/physiolgenomics.00158.2013. Epub 2014 Feb 11.

The wound healing, chronic fibrosis, and cancer progression triad

Brad Rybinski  1 , Janusz Franco-Barraza, Edna Cukierman
Affiliations
Review

The wound healing, chronic fibrosis, and cancer progression triad

Brad Rybinski et al. Physiol Genomics. .

Abstract

For decades tumors have been recognized as "wounds that do not heal." Besides the commonalities that tumors and wounded tissues share, the process of wound healing also portrays similar characteristics with chronic fibrosis. In this review, we suggest a tight interrelationship, which is governed as a concurrence of cellular and microenvironmental reactivity among wound healing, chronic fibrosis, and cancer development/progression (i.e., the WHFC triad). It is clear that the same cell types, as well as soluble and matrix elements that drive wound healing (including regeneration) via distinct signaling pathways, also fuel chronic fibrosis and tumor progression. Hence, here we review the relationship between fibrosis and cancer through the lens of wound healing.

Keywords: cancer; desmoplasia; epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition; fibrosis; myofibroblasts; regeneration; tumor stroma; tumor- or cancer-associated fibroblasts; wound healing.

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Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
The wound healing, chronic fibrosis, and cancer (WHFC) triad. Model depicting the WHFC triad commonalities based on wound healing. The cartoon highlights the fact that if wound resolution (as in acute wound healing) is not attained then chronic wound healing facilitates a vicious cycle between fibrosis and cancer. EMT, epithelial-mesenchymal transition.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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