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PI3K in cancer–stroma interactions: bad in seed and ugly in soil

Oncogene volume 33, pages 3083–3090 (2014)Cite this article

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Abstract

Over the past decade the phosphoinositide-3 kinase (PI3K) signaling pathway emerged as an important player for tumor initiation and growth and, currently, PI3K inhibition constitutes a promising therapeutic approach for solid and hematological tumors. Beside its role in tumor cell evolution, PI3K signaling also provides integral functions for noncancerous cells that reside in healthy tissues surrounding the tumor, also referred as tumor microenvironment (TME). This review will address how PI3K signaling participates to the tumorigenic process and discuss the interaction between tumor cells and the surrounding TME, with particular focus on the role of PI3Ks in tumor-associated immune responses, tumor angiogenesis and metastasis formation.

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Acknowledgements

We thank MC Schmid for critical reading of the manuscript. This work was supported by a grant from Fondazione Cariplo and Associazione Italiana Ricerca Cancro (AIRC). AG is recipient of a fellowship from Italian Foundation for Cancer Research (FIRC).

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  1. E Hirsch, E Ciraolo, I Franco, A Ghigo and M Martini: All the authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Molecular Biotechnology and Health Sciences–Center for Molecular Biotechnology, University of Torino, Torino, Italy

    E Hirsch, E Ciraolo, I Franco, A Ghigo & M Martini

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  1. E Hirsch
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  2. E Ciraolo
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  3. I Franco
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Correspondence to E Hirsch.

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Competing interests

EH is co-founder of Kither Biotech, a company involved in the development of PI3K inhibitors. The other authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Hirsch, E., Ciraolo, E., Franco, I. et al. PI3K in cancer–stroma interactions: bad in seed and ugly in soil. Oncogene 33, 3083–3090 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/onc.2013.265

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/onc.2013.265

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