Microenvironment and Metastasis Group, Department of Molecular Oncology, Spanish National Cancer Research Center (CNIO), 28029 Madrid, Spain.
Molecular Pathology of Sarcomas, Institute of Biomedicine of Sevilla (IBiS), Virgen del Rocio University Hospital, CSIC, University of Sevilla, CIBERONC, 41013 Seville, Spain.
Int J Mol Sci. 2021 Mar 20;22(6):3186. doi: 10.3390/ijms22063186.
A spotlight has been shone on endoglin in recent years due to that fact of its potential to serve as both a reliable disease biomarker and a therapeutic target. Indeed, endoglin has now been assigned many roles in both physiological and pathological processes. From a molecular point of view, endoglin mainly acts as a co-receptor in the canonical TGFβ pathway, but also it may be shed and released from the membrane, giving rise to the soluble form, which also plays important roles in cell signaling. In cancer, in particular, endoglin may contribute to either an oncogenic or a non-oncogenic phenotype depending on the cell context. The fact that endoglin is expressed by neoplastic and non-neoplastic cells within the tumor microenvironment suggests new possibilities for targeted therapies. Here, we aimed to review and discuss the many roles played by endoglin in different tumor types, as well as the strong evidence provided by pre-clinical and clinical studies that supports the therapeutic targeting of endoglin as a novel clinical strategy.
近年来，由于内皮糖蛋白有可能成为一种可靠的疾病生物标志物和治疗靶点，因此备受关注。事实上，内皮糖蛋白在生理和病理过程中已经扮演了许多角色。从分子角度来看，内皮糖蛋白主要作为经典 TGFβ 途径的共受体发挥作用，但它也可以从膜上脱落并释放，形成可溶性形式，后者在细胞信号转导中也发挥着重要作用。在癌症中，内皮糖蛋白可能根据细胞环境而促进致癌或非致癌表型。内皮糖蛋白在肿瘤微环境中的肿瘤和非肿瘤细胞中表达这一事实为靶向治疗提供了新的可能性。在这里，我们旨在综述和讨论内皮糖蛋白在不同肿瘤类型中的多种作用，以及临床前和临床研究提供的强有力证据，支持将内皮糖蛋白作为一种新的临床策略进行治疗靶向。
