Shaping Tumor Associated Macrophages: The Role of NF-κB

Tumor associated macrophages (TAMs) are known to form a large part of many human and murine tumors. These TAMs have been programmed by the tumor microenvironment and interact with other cells within the tumor leading to increased tumor growth, survival, invasion and metastasis. While TAMs are tumor supportive, “classically” activated macrophages are polarized to be tumoricidal. Signaling through the transcription factor, nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) has been shown to regulate many diverse genes and is heavily involved in inflammation and immunity and as such it has been shown to play a key role in the determination of macrophage function.