TY - JOUR
T1 - Involvement of the kynurenine pathway in breast cancer
T2 - updates on clinical research and trials
AU - Girithar, Hemaasri-Neya
AU - Staats Pires, Ananda
AU - Ahn, Seong Beom
AU - Guillemin, Gilles J.
AU - Gluch, Laurence
AU - Heng, Benjamin
N1 - Copyright the Author(s) 2023. Version archived for private and non-commercial use with the permission of the author/s and according to publisher conditions. For further rights please contact the publisher.
PY - 2023/8/10
Y1 - 2023/8/10
N2 - Breast cancer (BrCa) is the leading cause of cancer incidence and mortality in women worldwide. While BrCa treatment has been shown to be highly successful if detected at an early stage, there are few effective strategies to treat metastatic tumours. Hence, metastasis remains the main cause in most of BrCa deaths, highlighting the need for new approaches in this group of patients. Immunotherapy has been gaining attention as a new treatment for BrCa metastasis and the kynurenine pathway (KP) has been suggested as one of the potential targets. The KP is the major biochemical pathway in tryptophan (TRP) metabolism, catabolising TRP to nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+). The KP has been reported to be elevated under inflammatory conditions such as cancers and that its activity suppresses immune surveillance. Dysregulation of the KP has previously been reported implicated in BrCa. This review aims to discuss and provide an update on the current mechanisms involved in KP-mediated immune suppression and cancer growth. Furthermore, we also provide a summary on 58 studies about the involvement of the KP and BrCa and five clinical trials targeting KP enzymes and their outcome.
AB - Breast cancer (BrCa) is the leading cause of cancer incidence and mortality in women worldwide. While BrCa treatment has been shown to be highly successful if detected at an early stage, there are few effective strategies to treat metastatic tumours. Hence, metastasis remains the main cause in most of BrCa deaths, highlighting the need for new approaches in this group of patients. Immunotherapy has been gaining attention as a new treatment for BrCa metastasis and the kynurenine pathway (KP) has been suggested as one of the potential targets. The KP is the major biochemical pathway in tryptophan (TRP) metabolism, catabolising TRP to nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+). The KP has been reported to be elevated under inflammatory conditions such as cancers and that its activity suppresses immune surveillance. Dysregulation of the KP has previously been reported implicated in BrCa. This review aims to discuss and provide an update on the current mechanisms involved in KP-mediated immune suppression and cancer growth. Furthermore, we also provide a summary on 58 studies about the involvement of the KP and BrCa and five clinical trials targeting KP enzymes and their outcome.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85152423235&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/s41416-023-02245-7
DO - 10.1038/s41416-023-02245-7
M3 - Review article
C2 - 37041200
AN - SCOPUS:85152423235
SN - 0007-0920
VL - 129
SP - 185
EP - 203
JO - British Journal of Cancer
JF - British Journal of Cancer
IS - 2
ER -