Open Access

REVIEW

p53: A player in the tumor microenvironment

SHUANG ZHAO^1,#, HONGYONG WEN^2,#, BAIQI WANG², QINGLIN XIONG¹, LANXIN LI¹, AILAN CHENG^1,*

1 Hunan Engineering Research Center for Early Diagnosis and Treatment of Liver Cancer, Cancer Research Institute, Hengyang Medical School, University of South China, Hengyang, 421001, China
2 The Second Affiliated Hospital, Hengyang Medical School, University of South China, Hengyang, 421001, China

* Corresponding Author: AILAN CHENG. Email:
# These two authors contributed equally to this work

Oncology Research 2025, 33(4), 795-810. https://doi.org/10.32604/or.2025.057317

Received 14 August 2024; Accepted 09 December 2024; Issue published 19 March 2025

Abstract

Approximately half of all cancers have p53 inactivating mutations, in addition to which most malignancies inactivate the p53 pathway by increasing p53 inhibitors, decreasing p53 activators, or inactivating p53 downstream targets. A growing number of researches have demonstrated that p53 can influence tumor progression through the tumor microenvironment (TME). TME is involved in the process of tumor development and metastasis and affects the clinical prognosis of patients. p53 participates in host immunity and engages in the immune landscape of the TME, but the specific mechanisms remain to be investigated. This review briefly explores the interactions between different states of p53 and TME components and their mechanisms, as well as their effects on tumor progression. To understand the progress of drug development and clinical studies related to p53 and tumor microenvironment.

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Keywords

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