Journal Article

Feed‐forward loops between metastatic cancer cells and their microenvironment—the stage of escalation

Bentires‐Alj, Mohamed, Auf der Maur, Priska, Baumann, Zora

2022

Overview

Breast cancer is the most frequent cancer among women, and metastases in distant organs are the leading cause of the cancer‐related deaths. While survival of early‐stage breast cancer patients has increased dramatically, the 5‐year survival rate of metastatic patients has barely improved in the last 20 years. Metastases can arise up to decades after primary tumor resection, hinting at microenvironmental factors influencing the sudden outgrowth of disseminated tumor cells (DTCs). This review summarizes how the environment of the most common metastatic sites (lung, liver, bone, brain) is influenced by the primary tumor and by the varying dormancy of DTCs, with a special focus on how established metastases persist and grow in distant organs due to feed‐forward loops (FFLs). We discuss in detail the importance of FFL of cancer cells with their microenvironment including the secretome, interaction with specialized tissue‐specific cells, nutrients/metabolites, and that novel therapies should target not only the cancer cells but also the tumor microenvironment, which are thick as thieves. Graphical Abstract Metastases can arise decades after primary breast tumor resection. This review by M. Bentires‐Alj and colleagues describes how the environment of the most common metastatic sites is influenced by the primary tumor and the varying dormancy of disseminated tumor cells, with a focus on feed‐forward loops.

• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group UK,EMBO Press,John Wiley and Sons Inc,Springer Nature
• Subject: Bone tumors / Breast cancer / Cancer therapies / Dormancy / EMBO03 / EMBO24 / Extracellular matrix / feed‐forward loops / interdependency / Metabolism / Metastases / Metastasis / Mutation / Patients / Remission (Medicine) / Review / Secretome / Seeds / Tumor cells / Tumor microenvironment / Tumors