94% of researchers rate our articles as excellent or good
Learn more about the work of our research integrity team to safeguard the quality of each article we publish.
Find out more
REVIEW article
Front. Oncol.
Sec. Gynecological Oncology
Volume 15 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fonc.2025.1504762
This article is part of the Research Topic Prognostic Biomarkers and Gene Signatures in Endometrial, Ovarian, and Cervical Cancer View all 6 articles
Cancer-Associated Fibroblasts in Ovarian Cancer: Research Progress
Provisionally accepted- The Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University, Qingdao, China
Ovarian cancer, known for its high invasiveness and therapeutic resistance, is one of the leading causes of death from gynecological tumors. The tumor microenvironment (TME) plays a crucial role in the development of ovarian cancer, with cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) being a key non-tumor cell component. They significantly affect the prognosis of ovarian cancer by promoting tumor cell proliferation, invasion, metastasis, immune evasion, and drug resistance. The heterogeneity of CAFs provides a new perspective for targeted therapy in ovarian cancer. This review comprehensively analyzes the mechanisms of action, heterogeneity characteristics, and role in the immune microenvironment of CAFs in ovarian cancer, and discusses targeted therapy strategies for CAFs, aiming to provide new theoretical basis and treatment directions for the treatment of ovarian cancer.
Keywords: ovarian cancer, Cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs), Tumor Microenvironment, targeted therapy, immune microenvironment
Received: 01 Oct 2024; Accepted: 10 Feb 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Xu, Sun, He and Yao. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Qin Yao, The Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University, Qingdao, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.