Metabolic pathways fuelling protumourigenic cancer-associated fibroblast functions
Emily Kay, Sara Zanivan
Abstract
Cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) play many roles in supporting tumour growth and progression, and metabolic rewiring is known to be a hallmark of CAF activation. How to effectively target CAF metabolism is still an open question, however. Recent research shows that CAFs and cancer cells engage in complex metabolic crosstalk, which may offer strategies to metabolically target both tumour and stroma. CAF metabolic rewiring also regulates intrinsic CAF protumourigenic functions, by inducing epigenetic changes to maintain CAF activation and by promoting hallmarks of CAFs such as extracellular matrix (ECM) production and immunosuppression. Finally, the emerging field of CAF subpopulations has opened up possibilities for metabolically targeting specific protumourigenic subgroups and raises new questions about how we define and target CAFs.