Abstract
Cancer patients experience a four-fold increase in thrombosis risk, indicating that cancer development and progression are associated with platelet activation. Xenograft experiments and transgenic mouse models further demonstrate that platelet activation and platelet-cancer cell interaction are crucial for cancer metastasis. Direct or indirect interaction of platelets induces cancer cell plasticity and enhances survival and extravasation of circulating cancer cells during dissemination. In vivo and in vitro experiments also demonstrate that cancer cells induce platelet aggregation, suggesting that platelet-cancer interaction is bidirectional. Therefore, understanding how platelets crosstalk with cancer cells may identify potential strategies to inhibit cancer metastasis and to reduce cancer-related thrombosis. Here, we discuss the potential function of platelets in regulating cancer progression and summarize the factors and signaling pathways that mediate the cancer cell-platelet interaction.
Document Type
Review
Publication Date
4-20-2018
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms19041246
Funding Information
This study was supported by start-up funding from Markey Cancer Center and funding support from NCI (1R01CA207772, 1R01CA215095, and 1R21CA209045 to Ren Xu) and the United States Department of Defense (W81XWH-15-1-0052 to Ren Xu).
Repository Citation
Wang, Shike; Li, Zhenyu; and Xu, Ren, "Human Cancer and Platelet Interaction, a Potential Therapeutic Target" (2018). Markey Cancer Center Faculty Publications. 111.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/markey_facpub/111
Notes/Citation Information
Published in International Journal of Molecular Sciences, v. 19, issue 4, 1246, p. 1-15.
© 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).