Potential therapeutic targets in energy metabolism pathways of breast cancer.

Potential therapeutic targets in energy metabolism pathways of breast cancer. Curr Cancer Drug Targets. 2017 Mar 30;: Authors: Islam RA, Hossain S, Chowdhury EH Abstract Mutations in proto-oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes make cancer cells proliferate indefinitely. As they possess almost all mechanisms for cell proliferation and survival like healthy cells, it is difficult to specifically target cancer cells in the body. Current treatments in most of the cases are harmful to healthy cells as well. Thus, it would be of great prudence to target specific characters of cancer cells. Since cancer cells avidly use glucose and glutamine to survive and proliferate by upregulating the relevant enzymes and their specific isoforms having important regulatory roles, it has been of great interest recently to target the energy-related metabolic pathways as part of the therapeutic interventions. This paper summarizes the roles of energy metabolism and their cross-talks with other important signaling pathways in regulating proliferation, invasion and metastasis in breast cancer. As breast cancer is a highly heterogeneous disease, a clear understanding of the variations of energy metabolism in different molecular subtypes would help in treating each type with a very customized, safer and efficient treatment regimen, by targeting specific glucose metabolism and related pathways with gene silencing nucleic acid sequences or small molecule drugs, or...
Source: Current Cancer Drug Targets - Category: Cancer & Oncology Authors: Tags: Curr Cancer Drug Targets Source Type: research