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Review
. 2019 Jul 1:19:173.
doi: 10.1186/s12935-019-0888-9. eCollection 2019.

Effects of pericytes and colon cancer stem cells in the tumor microenvironment

Elsa N Garza Treviño  1 , Paulina Delgado González  1 , Carlos I Valencia Salgado  1 , Alejandra Martinez Garza  1
Affiliations
Review

Effects of pericytes and colon cancer stem cells in the tumor microenvironment

Elsa N Garza Treviño et al. Cancer Cell Int. .

Abstract

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one type of tumor with the highest frequency and mortality worldwide. Although current treatments increase patient survival, it is important to detect CRC in early stages; however, most CRC, despite responding favorably to treatment, develop resistance and present recurrence, a situation that will inevitably lead to death. In recent years, it has been shown that the main reason for drug resistance is the presence of colon cancer stem cells (CSC). Pericytes are also capable of tumor homing and are important cellular components of the tumor microenvironment (TME), contributing to the formation of vessels and promoting metastasis; however, they have not been considered very important as a therapeutic target in cancer. In this review, we highlight the contribution of pericytes and cancer stem cells to some classical hallmarks of cancer, namely, tumor angiogenesis, growth, metastasis, and evasion of immune destruction, and discuss therapies targeting pericytes and cancer stem cells in CRC.

Keywords: CRC treatment; Cancer stem cells; Chemoresitance; Pericytes.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interestsThe authors declare that they have no compeitng interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Interaction pericytes and cancer stem cells. Tumorigenesis activates EMT-promoting transcription factors (TWIST, SNAIL and ZEB) through pathways known to play critical as WNT, NOTCH, TGF-β and NF-κB cascades and hypoxia. Cancer stem cells were recently found to function as pericyte progenitors thus reciprocal interaction between pericytes and CSC is highly beneficial to tumor development, contributing to tumor angiogenesis and metastasis
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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