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Metabolic reprogramming in the tumor microenvironment of liver cancer
Open accessAbstract
The liver is essential for metabolic homeostasis. The onset of liver cancer is often accompanied by dysregulated liver function, leading to metabolic rearrangements. Overwhelming evidence has illustrated that dysregulated cellular metabolism can, in turn, promote anabolic growth and tumor propagation in a hostile microenvironment. In addition to supporting continuous tumor growth and survival, disrupted metabolic process also creates obstacles for the anticancer immune response and restrains durable clinical remission following immunotherapy. In this review, we elucidate the metabolic communication between liver cancer cells and their surrounding immune cells and discuss how metabolic reprogramming of liver cancer impacts the immune microenvironment and the efficacy of anticancer immunotherapy. We also describe the crucial role of the gut-liver axis in remodeling the metabolic crosstalk of immune surveillance and escape, highlighting novel therapeutic opportunities.
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“Reprogramming of liver microenvironment is a key feature of hepatocarcinogenesis, which encompasses but not limited to metabolic alterations of hepatocyte and immune cells, re-emergence of fetal-associated endothelial cells and altered inflammatory milieu [10, 46, 65, 66].”
From Single-cell transcriptome reveals the reprogramming of immune microenvironment during the transition from MASH to HCC (2025) · cites this paper as [65]
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Metadata
- Authors
- Lin, J., Rao, D., Zhang, M., & Gao, Q.
- Affiliations
- Fudan University (CN)
- Shanghai Medical College of Fudan University (CN)
- Corresponding author
- Gao, Qiang
- Venue
- Journal of Hematology & Oncology
- Published
- 2024-01-31
- Volume
- 17
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 6-6
- ISSN
- 1756-8722 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC10832230
- OpenAlex
- W4391404272
- Cited by
- 251
- References
- 231
- Citations by year
- 2026: 125 · 2025: 110 · 2024: 16
- FWCI
- 12.25
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- Journal of Hematology & Oncology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China (82103314, 82130077)
- Jinshan Hospital Flexible Mobile Talent Research Startup Fund (RXRC-2020-1)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Cancer Research › Cancer, Hypoxia, and Metabolism
- Life Sciences › Immunology and Microbiology › Immunology › Immune cells in cancer
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Oncology › Cancer Immunotherapy and Biomarkers
- Keywords
- metabolic reprogramming, liver cancer, tumor microenvironment, tumor immune microenvironment, cancer immunotherapy, immunotherapy resistance, gut-liver axis, immune surveillance, immune evasion
- MeSH terms
- Metabolic Reprogramming, Energy Metabolism, Glycolysis, Humans, Immunotherapy, Liver Neoplasms, Neoplasms, Tumor Microenvironment
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