Brain metastasis‐associated fibroblasts shape the tumour microenvironment to enhance cancer cell invasion

Research Overview

Brain metastases are a frequent, life-threatening complication of solid tumors, most often from lung cancer. Cancer-associated fibroblasts drive progression in many cancers outside the brain, but fibroblasts were long assumed scarce or absent in the brain tumor microenvironment, so their role there was poorly understood.

The authors isolated fibroblast-like cells from 13 human brain metastases of diverse origins. These cells expressed canonical cancer-associated fibroblast markers, proliferated less and showed more senescence than normal fibroblasts, and carried a transcriptome enriched for extracellular-matrix genes — multiple collagens, fibronectin, and matrix-remodeling enzymes. In culture they laid down a fibrillar matrix, establishing that a functional fibroblast compartment exists in brain metastases.