Figure 2.

Regulation of lncRNAs in the immune tumor microenvironment. The tumor immune microenvironment consists of not only numerous cancer cells and cancer stem cells, but also a great variety of immune cells, such as regulatory T cells and tumor-associated macrophages. Tumor non-immune microenvironment contains chemokines and cytokines. LncRNAs such as linc-POU3F3 have been shown to interact with intracellular targets and induce T-reg cell differentiation, creating immunosuppressive microenvironment to promote GC cell proliferation ⁴³. Some lncRNAs including lncRNA H19 induce M1 to M2 macrophage polarization that influences release of IL-10, VEGF and MMP-9 and mediates T cell suppression, tumor blood vessel and ECM formation ⁴⁹.