Medical University of South Carolina, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, 173 Ashley Avenue, MSC 504, Charleston, South Carolina 29425-5040, USA.
Expert Opin Ther Targets. 2010 May;14(5):529-39. doi: 10.1517/14728221003752768.
Ceramide accumulation has been shown to be a conserved mechanism of apoptosis initiation in normal physiological processes as well as in response to cancer treatments. Therefore, it is unsurprising that many cancers develop aberrations of sphingolipid metabolism that prevent the accumulation of ceramide, whether by reduction of ceramide generation or by enhanced ceramide catabolism, particularly dangerous when catabolism leads to generation of pro-tumor sphingosine-1-phosphate and ceramide-1-phosphate. Numerous studies have now implicated dysregulation of sphingolipid metabolism in head and neck cancers.
This review highlights the importance of sphingolipid metabolism and brings sphingolipid metabolism to the forefront in the investigation of novel therapies for head and neck cancer. It reviews sphingolipid-centric therapies under investigation in preclinical and clinical trials of cancers of the head and neck.
The roles of sphingolipids and sphingolipid metabolism in cancer are reviewed and the reader will be brought up to date with discoveries in the field of sphingolipid metabolism in head and neck cancer.
As treatments for head and neck cancers are currently limited, the potential of targeting sphingolipid metabolism should be taken into consideration as we seek novel ways to combat this group of tumors.
已证实，神经酰胺积累是正常生理过程以及癌症治疗中细胞凋亡起始的保守机制。因此，许多癌症发生鞘脂代谢异常，阻止神经酰胺积累，无论是通过减少神经酰胺的产生还是通过增强神经酰胺分解代谢，这并不奇怪，当分解代谢导致促肿瘤鞘氨醇-1-磷酸和神经酰胺-1-磷酸生成时，情况尤其危险。许多研究现在表明，鞘脂代谢失调与头颈部癌症有关。
本篇综述重点介绍了鞘脂代谢的重要性，并将鞘脂代谢置于头颈部癌症新疗法研究的前沿。它回顾了头颈部癌症的临床前和临床试验中正在研究的以鞘脂为中心的治疗方法。
本文综述了鞘脂和鞘脂代谢在癌症中的作用，并使读者了解头颈部癌症中鞘脂代谢领域的最新发现。
由于目前对头颈部癌症的治疗方法有限，因此在寻找对抗这类肿瘤的新方法时，应该考虑靶向鞘脂代谢的潜在可能性。
