ADVANCES IN MOLECULAR IMAGING OF TUMOR-ASSOCIATED FIBROBLASTS
Tumor-associated fibroblasts(cancer-associatedfibroblasts,CAFs)are classified into tumor stromal cells and participate in the formation of tumor microenvironment(tumormicroenvironment,TME).At present,clear studies have shown that CAFs is involved in activating some signal pathways and secreting some cytokines in the TME system,which pro-motes tumor proliferation,drug resistance and immunosuppression.With the gradual revelation of the expression characteris-tics of various subtype markers of CAFs,such as fibroblast activating protein(FAP)and α-smooth actin(α-SMA),we begin to use molecular imaging techniques to visualize,describe and measure CAFs at the molecular level,and the idea of using mo-lecular imaging technology target CAFs for tumor diagnostic imaging and treatment has also been realized.In this paper,the research progress of molecular imaging based on tumor microenvironment theory and tumor-related fibroblasts is reviewed.
tumor microenvironmenttumor-associatedfibroblastfibroblast activating proteinfibroblast activating protein inhibitor