TY - JOUR
T1 - The Role of Nerve Fibers in the Tumor Immune Microenvironment of Solid Tumors
AU - Hernandez, Sharia
AU - Serrano, Alejandra G.
AU - Solis Soto, Luisa M.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors thank to the laboratory members of the Translational Molecular Pathology Immune-Profiling Laboratory (TMP-IL), especially to Lakshmi Kakarala, Wei Lu, Khaja Khan, Mei Jiang, and Jianling Zhou for their technical assistance on retrieving images of histological slides stained with different histochemical and immunohistochemical staining.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Authors. Advanced Biology published by Wiley-VCH GmbH.
PY - 2022/9
Y1 - 2022/9
N2 - The importance of neurons and nerve fibers in the tumor microenvironment (TME) of solid tumors is now acknowledged after being unexplored for a long time; this is possible due to the development of new technologies that allow in situ characterization of the TME. Recent studies have shown that the density and types of nerves that innervate tumors can predict a patient's clinical outcome and drive several processes of tumor biology. Nowadays, several efforts in cancer research and neuroscience are taking place to elucidate the mechanisms that drive tumor-associated innervation and nerve-tumor and nerve-immune interaction. Assessment of neurons and nerves within the context of the TME can be performed in situ, in tumor tissue, using several pathology-based strategies that utilize histochemical and immunohistochemistry principles, hi-plex technologies, and computational pathology approaches to identify measurable histopathological characteristics of nerves. These features include the number and type of tumor associated nerves, topographical location and microenvironment of neural invasion of malignant cells, and investigation of neuro-related biomarker expression in nerves, tumor cells, and cells of the TME. A deeper understanding of these complex interactions and the impact of nerves in tumor biology will guide the design of better strategies for targeted therapy in clinical trials.
AB - The importance of neurons and nerve fibers in the tumor microenvironment (TME) of solid tumors is now acknowledged after being unexplored for a long time; this is possible due to the development of new technologies that allow in situ characterization of the TME. Recent studies have shown that the density and types of nerves that innervate tumors can predict a patient's clinical outcome and drive several processes of tumor biology. Nowadays, several efforts in cancer research and neuroscience are taking place to elucidate the mechanisms that drive tumor-associated innervation and nerve-tumor and nerve-immune interaction. Assessment of neurons and nerves within the context of the TME can be performed in situ, in tumor tissue, using several pathology-based strategies that utilize histochemical and immunohistochemistry principles, hi-plex technologies, and computational pathology approaches to identify measurable histopathological characteristics of nerves. These features include the number and type of tumor associated nerves, topographical location and microenvironment of neural invasion of malignant cells, and investigation of neuro-related biomarker expression in nerves, tumor cells, and cells of the TME. A deeper understanding of these complex interactions and the impact of nerves in tumor biology will guide the design of better strategies for targeted therapy in clinical trials.
KW - cancer
KW - nerve density
KW - perineural niche
KW - tumor microenvironment
KW - tumor-associated nerves
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U2 - 10.1002/adbi.202200046
DO - 10.1002/adbi.202200046
M3 - Review article
C2 - 35751462
AN - SCOPUS:85132593010
SN - 2701-0198
JO - Advanced Biology
JF - Advanced Biology
ER -