Overview of Current Immunotherapies Targeting Mutated KRAS Cancers.

Overview of Current Immunotherapies Targeting Mutated KRAS Cancers. Curr Top Med Chem. 2019 Sep 04;: Authors: Hoo WPY, Siak PY, In LLA Abstract The occurrence of somatic substitution mutations of the KRAS proto-oncogene are highly prevalent in certain cancer types, which often leads to constant activation of proliferative pathways and subsequent neoplastic transformation. It is often seen as a gateway mutation in carcinogenesis, and has been commonly deemed as a predictive biomarker for poor prognosis and relapse when conventional chemotherapeutics are employed. Additionally, its mutational status also renders EGFR targeted therapies ineffective owing to its downstream location. Efforts to discover new approaches targeting this menacing culprit have been ongoing for years without much success, and with incidences of KRAS positive cancer patients being on the rise, researchers are now turning towards immunotherapies as the way forward. In this scoping review, recent immunotherapeutic developments and advances in both pre-clinical and clinical studies targeting K-ras directly or indirectly via its downstream signal transduction machinery will be discussed. Additionally, some of the challenges and limitations of various K-ras targeting immunotherapeutic approaches such as vaccines, adoptive T cell therapies and checkpoint inhibitors against KRAS positive cancers will be deliberated. PMID: 31483231 [PubMed - as supplied by publis...
Source: Current Topics in Medicinal Chemistry - Category: Chemistry Authors: Tags: Curr Top Med Chem Source Type: research