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REVIEW article
Front. Oncol.
Sec. Cancer Molecular Targets and Therapeutics
Volume 15 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fonc.2025.1571583
The Role and Clinical Significance of Tumor-Associated Macrophages in the Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition of Lung Cancer
Provisionally accepted- 1Kunming Medical University, Kunming, China
- 2Department of Pathology, First Affiliated Hospital of Kunming Medical University, Kunming, Yunnan Province, China
- 3First People’s Hospital of Anning City (Jinfang Branch), Anning, China
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Lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide. Tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) are key drivers of lung cancer metastasis and drug resistance.M2polarized TAMs dominate the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment (TME) and promote EMT through cytokines such as TGF-β, IL-6, and CCL2.Conversely, EMT-transformed tumor cells reinforce TAM recruitment and M2 polarization through immunomodulatory factors such as CCL2 and ZEB1, thereby establishing a bidirectional interplay that fuels tumor progression. Current evidence on this interaction remains fragmented, and a comprehensive review of the TAM-EMT regulatory network and its therapeutic implications is lacking. This review systematically integrates the bidirectional regulatory mechanisms between TAMs and EMT, highlighting their roles in lung cancer progression. It also summarizes emerging therapeutic strategies targeting TAM polarization and the EMT process, emphasizing their potential for clinical translation. This study fills the gap in systematic reviews on the interaction between TAMs and EMT, providing a comprehensive theoretical foundation for future research and the development of novel lung cancer therapies.
Keywords: Tumor-associated macrophages, Epithelial-mesenchymal transformation, lung cancer, Tumor Microenvironment, tumor therapy
Received: 05 Feb 2025; Accepted: 25 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 廖, WANG, Fan, Wang and Zhang. 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:
磊 廖, Kunming Medical University, Kunming, China
Xue-Chang Wang, First People’s Hospital of Anning City (Jinfang Branch), Anning, China
Xuan Zhang, Kunming Medical University, Kunming, 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.