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Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
The design of innovative cancer treatments requires extensive characterization of the molecular and cellular alterations associated with tumor development and progression. Cancer cells show extensive alterations in protein expression levels, which are drivers of their malignant transformation. Proteins with altered expression levels in cancer are involved in protein synthesis and degradation, signaling and metabolic pathways, DNA repair, apoptosis, and other cellular processes, whose alterations cause tumor development and progression. Characterizing the mechanisms that lead to alterations in protein levels and their cellular effects is an invaluable tool for repurposing those proteins as drug targets. Examples of up-regulated proteins in cancer include the epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) and the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). HER2 is up-regulated in several cancer types, including breast, gastroesophageal, and non-small-cell lung cancers, making it an effective drug target. VEGF is up-regulated in pancreatic, prostate, and colorectal cancers, among others. Its inhibition is also an effective anticancer treatment, through a decrease in tumor vascularization.These examples demonstrate the modulation of protein levels as an effective anticancer target, which is becoming widely used in patient treatments. These studies also encourage additional research to uncover and test novel up-/down-regulated proteins as potential new therapeutic targets.
Description
Copyright © 2022 Pessoa, Martins, Casimiro, Pérez-Plasencia and Shoshan-Barmatz. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Keywords
Cancer Protein expression levels Up-regulation Down-regulation Therapeutic target
Pedagogical Context
Citation
Front Oncol. 2022 Jun 22;12:949139
Publisher
Frontiers