Cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAF)

Understanding the interactions between CAF and immune infiltrate

Fatima Mechta Grigoriou, Anne Vincent Salomon

Background: It is recognized that tumors with dense lymphocyte infiltrate are of better prognosis. However, it has been shown that cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAF) present in the tumor microenvironment interact with the immune infiltrate and play a role in tumor progression and resistance to treatment.

In a recent study the team highlighted the existence of different CAF populations including CAF S1 (Costa, Cancer Cell, 2018).

The team also identified, in triple negative breast cancer, the existence of two tumor subgroups respectively enriched in CAF S1 and CAF S4.

Hypothesis: interactions between CAF and immune infiltrate play an important role in the development of the disease. Better understanding their interactions could lead to new therapeutic approaches and enable us to evaluate the use of CAFs as predictive biomarkers of the response to immunotherapies.

Objective: in triple negative breast cancer