Cancer cell dormancy: mechanisms and implications of cancer recurrence and metastasis

Abstract

More recently, disease metastasis and relapse in many cancer patients several years (even some decades) after surgical remission are regarded as tumor dormancy. However, the knowledge of this phenomenon is cripplingly limited. Substantial quantities of reviews have summarized three main potential models that can be put forth to explain such process, including angiogenic dormancy, immunologic dormancy, and cellular dormancy. In this review, newly uncovered mechanisms governing cancer cell dormancy are discussed, with an emphasis on the cross talk between dormant cancer cells and their microenvironments. In addition, potential mechanisms of reactivation of these dormant cells in certain anatomic sites including lymph nodes and bone marrow are discussed. Molecular mechanism of cellular dormancy in head and neck cancer is also involved.

Keywords:

• cancer cell dormancy
• disseminated tumor cells
• head and neck cancer
• hypoxia
• lymph node metastasis

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China grants (Nos 81772891, 81372891, 81672672, 81572650, 81272961, and 81361120399), the Fundamental Research Funds of the Central Universities of China (2015), and the State Key Laboratory of Oral Diseases Special Funded Projects (2016).

Disclosure

The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.