1. Philippe Gascard1 and
2. Thea D. Tlsty1,2

1. ¹Department of Pathology, University of California at San Francisco, San Francisco, California 94143, USA;
2. ²Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of California at San Francisco, San Francisco, California 94143, USA

1. Corresponding author:thea.tlsty{at}ucsf.edu

Abstract

The tumor stroma is no longer seen solely as physical support for mutated epithelial cells but as an important modulator and even a driver of tumorigenicity. Within the tumor stromal milieu, heterogeneous populations of fibroblast-like cells, collectively termed carcinoma-associated fibroblasts (CAFs), are key players in the multicellular, stromal-dependent alterations that contribute to malignant initiation and progression. This review focuses on novel insights into the contributions of CAFs to disease progression, emergent events leading to the generation of CAFs, identification of CAF-specific biomarkers predictive of disease outcome, and recent therapeutic approaches aimed at blunting or reverting detrimental protumorigenic phenotypes associated with CAFs.

Footnotes

• Article is online athttp://www.genesdev.org/cgi/doi/10.1101/gad.279737.116.

This article is distributed exclusively by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press for the first six months after the full-issue publication date (seehttp://genesdev.cshlp.org/site/misc/terms.xhtml). After six months, it is available under a Creative Commons License (Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International), as described athttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

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