Hematopoietic stem cell niche is a potential therapeutic target for bone metastatic tumors
Cet article évalue la faisabilité d'utiliser des agents perturbant les interactions entre les cellules tumorales et la niche des cellules souches hématopoïétiques pour lutter contre les métastases osseuses
Despite significant improvement in therapy, the prognosis of cancer with bone metastasis is generally poor. Therefore, there is a great need for new therapeutic approaches for metastatic disease. It has been appreciated that tumor cells metastasize to bone using similar mechanisms of hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) homing to bone marrow (e.g. CXCL12/CXCR4). It was recently found that prostate cancer (PCa) cells target the bone marrow microenvironment for HSCs, or HSC niche, during metastasis. Importantly, these disseminated PCa cells can be mobilized out of the niche using HSC mobilizing agents. These findings suggest that bone marrow HSC niche is a potential therapeutic target for metastatic disease. Therefore, the hypothesis worth considering is that agents that can disrupt the interactions between tumor cells and the HSC niche may prove efficacious when used in conjunction with standard chemotherapeutic agents. Although further understanding of the tumor-niche interactions is needed, the concept of targeting the niche in conjunction with chemotherapy could open up new windows to eradicate incurable metastatic diseases.