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Fig. 1 | Clinical and Translational Medicine

Fig. 1

From: Pancreatic cancer microenvironment: a current dilemma

Fig. 1

Unique characteristics of pancreatic cancer microenvironment. Pancreatic cancer stroma is enriched with pancreatic stellate cells (PSCs) that produce excessive amounts stromal elements such as collagens, laminin and fibronectin leading to desmoplasia, a process, which produces a hypovascular microenvironment, impairing local drug delivery, rendering tumors resistant to chemotherapeutics. Cancer stem cells (CSCs), which are known to be multidrug resistant also play a role in chemoresistance [1]. Pancreatic cancer microenvironment is “highly” infiltrated by a variety of immunosuppressive cell types such as myeloid derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) and regulatory T cells (Tregs) that mitigate the effector function of cytotoxic T cells (CTLs), leading to immune evasion. That constitutes an important factor for ineffectiveness of immunotherapies in pancreatic cancer along with the hypoimmunogenic nature of the cancer due to low mutation burden and lack of significant neoantigens [2]

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