Abstract: Cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) are a major population that resides in the tumor microenvironment. Multiple soluble molecules secreted by CAFs remodel the extracellular matrix, thus promoting tumor growth, invasion and metastasis. It is now considered that CAFs play an important role in the regulation of tumor immunity, in which an increasing number of molecular mechanisms of tumor microenvironment remodeling are being discovered. This article reviews the molecular markers of CAFs, the crosstalk between CAFs and tumor cells or immune cells, as well as the progress on therapeutic targeting of CAFs.

Key words: cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs), tumor microenvironment, tumor immunity