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Mast cell: insight into remodeling a tumor microenvironment

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Abstract

Mast cells are of paramount importance to allergies, pathogen immune responses during infections, and angiogenesis, as well as innate and adaptive immune regulations. Beyond all these roles, mast cells are now more and more being recognized as modulators of tumor microenvironment. Notwithstanding mounting evidences of mast cell accumulation in tumors, their exact role in tumor microenvironment is still incompletely understood. In this review, we discuss the significant role of mast cells in the remodeling of tumor microenvironment by either releasing various factors after activation or interacting with other cells within tumor and, as a result, the possible role of mast cell in cancer invasion and metastasis. We also discuss recent findings that mast cells actively release microparticles, which account for the transfer of membrane-type receptor signal and regulatory molecules such as microRNAs to tumor cells and immune cells. These findings on mast cells provide further insights into the complexity of tumor microenvironment remodeling.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Dr. Yonghong Wan of McMaster University (Canada) and Dr. Yan Su of The University of Maryland (USA) for their helpful discussion and assistance in editing this article.

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (30871020), Funds for International Cooperation and Exchange of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (30911120482), the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University (NCET-08-0219), Special Research Foundation for Universities affiliated with China Ministry of Education (Z2009005), Important National Science and Technology Specific Projects (2009ZX09301-014), Scientific Research Foundation of Wuhan City Human Resource for Returned Scholars.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science & Technology, Wuhan, 430030, The People’s Republic of China

    Jing Liu, Yi Zhang, Zhuoshun Yang, Dapeng Li, Foad Katirai & Bo Huang

  2. Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science & Technology, Wuhan, 430030, The People’s Republic of China

    Jie Zhao

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  1. Jing Liu
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Correspondence to Bo Huang.

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Liu, J., Zhang, Y., Zhao, J. et al. Mast cell: insight into remodeling a tumor microenvironment. Cancer Metastasis Rev 30, 177–184 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10555-011-9276-1

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