The Role of Mesenchymal Stem Cells in Promoting Ovarian Cancer Growth and Spread
Abstract
Currently, there are many promising clinical trials using mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) in cell-based therapies of diseases ranging widely from graft- versus- host to joint and cartilage disorders. Increasingly, however, there is a concern over the clinical use of MSCs because they are also known to home to tumors and once resident in the tumor microenvironment (TME) to support tumor growth and spread. For instance, we established that MSCs in the ovarian tumor microenvironment promoted tumor growth and favored angiogenesis. We also developed new methodology to induce the standard mixed pool of MSCs into two uniform but distinct phenotypes, MSC1 and MSC2 . In recent studies we found that MSC2 supported ovarian cancer growth and spread while surprisingly MSC1 had an opposite anti-tumor effect. We do not yet know the mechanisms behind this MSC1 mediated inhibition of tumor growth. Our long - term goal is to determine the role that MSCs play in cancer growth and spread in order to design more effective tumor therapies. The objective here is to establish whether induction of MSCs into MSC1 is a feasible new anti - tumor cell-based therapy approach, and to identify the molecular mechanisms behind the MSC1 mediated anti -tumor effect. Our central hypothesis is that MSC1 will home to the ovarian tumor microenvironment and shift the balance from a tumor promoting stroma to a tumor eradicating one that attenuates tumor growth and spread by influencing the secretion of defined soluble factors and extracellular matrix proteins as well as modifying the host immune response.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 01, 2014
- Accession Number
- ADA619689
Entities
People
- Aline M. Betancourt
Organizations
- Tulane University of Louisiana