Department of Oncohematology, Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital, IRCCS, 00165 Rome, Italy.
Department of Science, University of Rome 'Roma Tre', 00146 Rome, Italy.
Int J Mol Sci. 2020 Nov 10;21(22):8422. doi: 10.3390/ijms21228422.
Rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) is the most common soft tissue sarcoma of children and adolescents. The fusion-positive (FP)-RMS variant expressing chimeric oncoproteins such as PAX3-FOXO1 and PAX7-FOXO1 is at high risk. The fusion negative subgroup, FN-RMS, has a good prognosis when non-metastatic. Despite a multimodal therapeutic approach, FP-RMS and metastatic FN-RMS often show a dismal prognosis with 5-year survival of less than 30%. Therefore, novel targets need to be discovered to develop therapies that halt tumor progression, reducing long-term side effects in young patients. Focal adhesion kinase (FAK) is a non-receptor tyrosine kinase that regulates focal contacts at the cellular edges. It plays a role in cell motility, survival, and proliferation in response to integrin and growth factor receptors' activation. FAK is often dysregulated in cancer, being upregulated and/or overactivated in several adult and pediatric tumor types. In RMS, both in vitro and preclinical studies point to a role of FAK in tumor cell motility/invasion and proliferation, which is inhibited by FAK inhibitors. In this review, we summarize the data on FAK expression and modulation in RMS. Moreover, we give an overview of the approaches to inhibit FAK in both preclinical and clinical cancer settings.
横纹肌肉瘤 (RMS) 是儿童和青少年中最常见的软组织肉瘤。表达嵌合癌蛋白(如 PAX3-FOXO1 和 PAX7-FOXO1)的融合阳性 (FP)-RMS 变体风险较高。融合阴性亚组 (FN-RMS) 在非转移性时预后良好。尽管采用了多模式治疗方法,但 FP-RMS 和转移性 FN-RMS 经常预后不良,5 年生存率低于 30%。因此,需要发现新的靶点来开发能够阻止肿瘤进展的疗法,从而减少年轻患者的长期副作用。粘着斑激酶 (FAK) 是一种非受体酪氨酸激酶,可调节细胞边缘的粘着斑。它在整合素和生长因子受体激活时的细胞运动、存活和增殖中发挥作用。FAK 在癌症中经常失调,在几种成人和儿科肿瘤类型中上调和/或过度激活。在 RMS 中,体外和临床前研究都指出 FAK 在肿瘤细胞运动/侵袭和增殖中的作用,FAK 抑制剂可抑制其作用。在这篇综述中,我们总结了 FAK 在 RMS 中的表达和调节数据。此外,我们还概述了在临床前和临床癌症环境中抑制 FAK 的方法。