Chemokines in tumor progression and metastasis

Abstract

// Purvaba J. Sarvaiya 1 , Donna Guo 1 , Ilya Ulasov 1 , Patrik Gabikian 1 and Maciej S. Lesniak 1 1 The Brain Tumor Center, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA Correspondence: Maciej S. Lesniak, email: // Keywords : Chemokines, chemokine receptors, cancer, metastasis Received : September 19, 2013 Accepted : November 8, 2013 Published : November 9, 2013 Abstract Chemokines play a vital role in tumor progression and metastasis. Chemokines are involved in the growth of many cancers including breast cancer, ovarian cancer, pancreatic cancer, melanoma, lung cancer, gastric cancer, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, colon cancer, non-small lung cancer and non-hodgkin’s lymphoma among many others. The expression of chemokines and their receptors is altered in many malignancies and leads to aberrant chemokine receptor signaling. This review focuses on the role of chemokines in key processes that facilitate tumor progression including proliferation, senescence, angiogenesis, epithelial mesenchymal transition, immune evasion and metastasis.