Role of the Hypoxic-Secretome in Seed and Soil Metastatic Preparation

Abstract

During tumor growth, the delivery of oxygen to cells is impaired due to aberrant or absent vasculature. This causes an adaptative response that activates the expression of genes that control several essential processes, such as glycolysis, neovascularization, immune suppression, and the cancer stemness phenotype, leading to increased metastasis and resistance to therapy. Hypoxic tumor cells also respond to an altered hypoxic microenvironment by secreting vesicles, factors, cytokines and nucleic acids that modify not only the immediate microenvironment but also organs at distant sites, allowing or facilitating the attachment and growth of tumor cells and contributing to metastasis. Hypoxia induces the release of molecules of different biochemical natures, either secreted or inside extracellular vesicles, and both tumor cells and stromal cells are involved in this process. The mechanisms by which these signals that can modify the premetastatic niche are sent from the primary tumor site include changes in the extracellular matrix, recruitment and activation of different stromal cells and immune or nonimmune cells, metabolic reprogramming, and molecular signaling network rewiring. In this review, we will discuss how hypoxia might alter the premetastatic niche through different signaling molecules.

Keywords: cancer; exosomes; hypoxia; metastasis; microenvironment; seed and soil.

Figure 1

Schematic summary. As part of the adaptative response to hypoxic conditions, both tumoral and stromal cells alter the secretion of free molecules and extracellular vesicles, which upon arrival at the secondary site promote a series of changes that result in a permissive premetastatic niche.

Figure 2

Exosomal communication of tumoral cells with stromal cells.

Figure 3

Effect of hypoxia on cellular components of the premetastatic niche.