Cancer Biology & Medicine最新文献

Pancreatic cancer (PC) is a highly aggressive cancer characterized by a unique tumor microenvironment (TME) that confers resistance to traditional therapies. As the dominant stromal cells in the TME, cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) promote PC progression by modulating the extracellular matrix and interacting with surrounding cells. Numerous PC treatment strategies targeting CAFs have been explored in the past decade. However, targeting different subtypes of CAFs leads to varying therapeutic outcomes, highlighting the intricate and multifaceted nature of CAFs. The heterogeneity and dynamism of CAFs increase the complexity and challenges associated with tumor therapeutics. Currently, combination therapies incorporating CAF-targeted approaches in PC treatment have shown encouraging outcomes in select clinical trials. A comprehensive understanding of CAFs is essential for developing individualized therapeutic approaches. This review outlines the current knowledge of CAF heterogeneity, crosstalk with surrounding cells, and strategies for targeting CAFs in PC, aiming to keep researchers and clinicians up-to-date with the latest information on CAFs in PC.

Breast cancer mortality is driven predominantly by metastasis, which affects 20-30% of patients with early-stage disease despite guideline-directed therapies. Because conventional imaging modalities currently lack sensitivity to identify residual disease, molecular-level monitoring must be developed. Circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) profiling currently enables transformative minimal residual disease (MRD) detection and can quantify tumor burden at low variant allele frequencies. This review provides a comprehensive overview of MRD in breast cancer, including its definition, detection technologies, positivity thresholds, pathophysiology, clinical applications in adjuvant and neoadjuvant settings, ongoing clinical trials, challenges, and future directions. ctDNA-defined MRD has potential as a precision tool for adaptive therapy, and might facilitate post-adjuvant interception, whereby targeted therapies are administered to eradicate micro-metastases before radiographic recurrence. Persistent challenges include MRD assay standardization, subtype-specific MRD thresholds, tumor heterogeneity, and positioning MRD as a potentially valuable tool for precision management in breast cancer.

Primary cilia, microtubule-based organelles protruding from the surfaces of most eukaryotic cells, have critical roles in maintaining cellular homeostasis, by sensing, transducing, and transmitting diverse extracellular and intracellular signals through multiple signaling pathways, including the Hedgehog, Notch, and Wnt pathways. Consequently, structural or functional abnormalities in primary cilia often lead to various human diseases, including cancer. Although primary cilia are frequently absent in most cancer types, they paradoxically facilitate tumor initiation and progression in certain malignancies. Therefore, elucidating the complex interplay between primary cilia and cancer might provide novel insights for cancer treatment. In this review, we summarize current insights into the structure and function of primary cilia, explore their roles in key tumor-associated signaling pathways, and discuss emerging evidence linking ciliary dysfunction to cancer development and progression. We also highlight recent advances in targeting cilia-associated mechanisms as potential therapeutic strategies in oncology.