title: Role of mesenchymal cells in the natural history of ovarian cancer: a review.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Ovarian cancer is the deadliest gynaecologic malignancy. Despite progresses in chemotherapy and ultra-radical surgeries, this locally metastatic disease presents a high rate of local recurrence advocating for the role of a peritoneal niche. For several years, it was believed that tumor initiation, progression and metastasis were merely due to the changes in the neoplastic cell population and the adjacent non-neoplastic tissues were regarded as bystanders. The importance of the tumor microenvironment and its cellular component emerged from studies on the histopathological sequence of changes at the interface between putative tumor cells and the surrounding non-neoplastic tissues during carcinogenesis.
  
  
  METHODS
  In this review we aimed to describe the pro-tumoral crosstalk between ovarian cancer and mesenchymal stem cells. A PubMed search was performed for articles published pertaining to mesenchymal stem cells and specific to ovarian cancer.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Mesenchymal stem cells participate to an elaborate crosstalk through direct and paracrine interaction with ovarian cancer cells. They play a role at different stages of the disease: survival and peritoneal infiltration at early stage, proliferation in distant sites, chemoresistance and recurrence at later stage.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The dialogue between ovarian and mesenchymal stem cells induces the constitution of a pro-tumoral mesencrine niche. Understanding the dynamics of such interaction in a clinical setting might propose new therapeutic strategies.
authors.affiliation: Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Hôpital Intercommunal de Créteil, Université Paris Est, UPEC-Paris XII, 12 avenue de Verdun, 94000, Créteil, France. cyril.touboul@gmail.com.|UMR INSERM U965: Angiogenèse et Recherche translationnelle Hôpital Lariboisière, 49 bd de la chapelle, 75010, Paris, France. cyril.touboul@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Cyril
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Touboul
authors.affiliation: Stem Cell and Microenvironment Laboratory, Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar, Education City, Qatar Foundation, Doha, Qatar. dox_94@yahoo.fr.|Department Genetic Medicine, Weill Cornell Medical College, Manhattan, NY, USA. dox_94@yahoo.fr.|Department of Genetic Medicine and Obstetrics and Gynecology, Stem Cell and Microenvironment Laboratory, Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar, Qatar-Foundation PO: 24144, Doha, Qatar. dox_94@yahoo.fr.
authors.forename: Fabien
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Vidal
authors.affiliation: Stem Cell and Microenvironment Laboratory, Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar, Education City, Qatar Foundation, Doha, Qatar. jep2026@qatar-med.cornell.edu.|Department Genetic Medicine, Weill Cornell Medical College, Manhattan, NY, USA. jep2026@qatar-med.cornell.edu.
authors.forename: Jennifer
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Pasquier
authors.affiliation: Department Genetic Medicine, Weill Cornell Medical College, Manhattan, NY, USA. ral2020@med.cornell.edu.
authors.forename: Raphael
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Lis
authors.affiliation: Stem Cell and Microenvironment Laboratory, Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar, Education City, Qatar Foundation, Doha, Qatar. ral2020@med.cornell.edu.|Department Genetic Medicine, Weill Cornell Medical College, Manhattan, NY, USA. ral2020@med.cornell.edu.
authors.forename: Arash
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Rafii
mesh_terms: D019008:Drug Resistance, Neoplasm; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D045164:Mesenchymal Stem Cell Transplantation; D059630:Mesenchymal Stem Cells / Q000473:pathology*; D009362:Neoplasm Metastasis; D010051:Ovarian Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology*; D010534:Peritoneal Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology