Targeting poor prognostic CAF markers in gastric cancer

Gastric cancer is the 5th most common cancer worldwide and the 4th leading cause of cancer deaths. Although highly cytotoxic chemotherapies are used in the clinic, curative strategies for advanced gastric cancer remain limited. Cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) are the key elements of the tumor microenvironment that secrete various extracellular matrix proteins to increase tumor aggressiveness. Patients with CAF phenotype in their tumor microenvironment exhibit poor survival, prognosis, and chemoresistance. Recently through a bioinformatic study we identified poor prognostic markers associated with CAFs in gastric cancer, that decrease the patient survival significantly. Unraveling tumor-driving phenotypes associated with these markers of CAFs can show great promise in the treatment of gastric cancer. Therefore, in this study, we investigate the poor prognostic effects of CAFs using co-culture models of fibroblasts or patient-derived CAFs with gastric cancer cells.