Tumor microenvironment: systematic review

The growth and progression of a neoplasm is a multi–stage process mediated by interactions between tumor cells and their surrounding stroma including various cell types (fibroblasts, endothelial cells, immune cells), cell-free components (cytokines, extracellular vesicles and extracellular matrix), blood and lymphatic vessels that form the tumor microenvironment. During the progression of neoplasms, tumor cells can evade the immune response by suppressing or losing tumor antigens releasing immunosuppressive extracellular vesicles and exosomes, secreting various cytokines, chemokines and other factors, and begin to reprogram and remodel the surrounding stroma. The most relevant areas of TME study are cells and molecules of innate and acquired immunity exhibited both suppressive and stimulating activity against tumor cells due to their high heterogeneity and plasticity. Special attention is paid to immune control points, tumor microbiota, components of intercellular interaction as well as immunotherapy of tumor diseases. In this paper, a systematic review of scientific publications in PubMed database devoted to the study of TME and published in the period from 2019 to 2024 was carried out. 2547 sources were studied and 68 articles were selected during the screening process. Search queries and keywords included «tumor microenvironment», «immune cells», «tumor», «oncogenesis», «metastasis». The formed group of scientific articles will allow to study in more detail the cellular and molecular composition of the tumor microenvironment, as well as the main targets for the development of new approaches for malignant neoplasms diagnosis and therapy involving TME.