Effect and Molecular Mechanisms of Traditional Chinese Medicine on Tumor Targeting Tumor-Associated Macrophages

Abstract

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has been used as a significant cancer treatment method for many years in China. It has been demonstrated that TCM could assist in inhibiting the growth of tumors and prolonging the survival rates of cancer patients. Although the mechanism of TCM are still not clear, accumulating evidence has shown that they may be related to the tumor microenvironment (TME). Tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) play a significant role in TME and are polarized to two phenotypes, M1 (classically activated) and M2 (alternatively activated) TAMs. The two different phenotypes of TAMs play converse roles in the TME and M2-polarized tumor-associated macrophages (M2-TAMs) always lead to poor prognosis in cancer patients compared to M1-polarized tumor-associated macrophages (M1-TAMs). In this review, the potential correlation between TCM and TAMs (especially the M2 phenotype) in tumor progression and promising TCM strategies targeting TAMs in cancer are discussed.

Keywords:

• traditional Chinese medicine
• TCM
• tumor-associated macrophages
• TAMs
• tumor microenvironment

Acknowledgments

This work is supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number 81873137 and 81603464), The Action Plan of Shanghai Municipality for Further Accelerating the Development of Traditional Chinese Medicine (grant number ZY(2018-2020)-RCPY-2016). This study is also partially supported by Outstanding Youth Medical Talents of Shanghai “Rising Stars of Medical Talent” Youth Development Program, Academic Leader of “315” Health and Family Planning Commission System Project in Putuo District, Shanghai (grant number18Q-RC-01) and Shanghai Rising-Star Program (grant number 17QA1403400).

Disclosure

The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.