Table 1.

The role of osteoblasts and osteoblastic niche in inducing tumour cell dormancy

Cancer types	Osteoblast-secreted factors	Mechanisms	Reference
Human breast cancer cells	Direct interaction	N/A	[25]
Primary breast cancer cells		↑ KLF7, THY1, PECA1, and PLAUR; ↓ BMI1 and ID1	[22]
Breast cancer cells		↑ Notch2 signalling	[26]
Myeloma cells	Type-I collagen	N/A	[21]
Primary leukaemia cells	OPN	↑ cell cycle exit	[23]
Prostate cancer cells	BMP7	↑ NDRG1 mRNA expression via activating p38 and p21	[27]
Prostate cancer cells	Wnt5a	↑ SIAH2/ROR2 signalling axis; ↓ Wnt/β-catenin signalling	[28]
Prostate cancer cells	TGFβ2	↑ TGFβRIII signalling; ↑ p38MAPK phosphorylation and nuclear translocation; ↑ pS249/pT252-RB in the nucleus; ↑ p27 and G1-cell cycle arrest	[20]
Breast cancer cells	LIF	Binding to LIFR and ↑ gene expressions of TSP1, TPM1, TGFβ2, P4HA1, miR-190 and SELENBP1	[29]
Cancer cells	CXCL12	Binding to CXCR4 in tumour cells and ↑ drug resistance	[30, 31]
Prostate cancer cells	Gas6	↑ Axl, Sky and Mer	[32]

Note: ‘↑’ represents increased, upregulated, induced, enhanced and activated; While ‘↓’ represents decreased, downregulated, inhibited; N/A represents not applicable