Departamento de Ciencias Biomédicas, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad Católica del Norte, Coquimbo, Chile.
Millennium Nucleus for the Study of Pain (MiNuSPain), Santiago, Chile.
Purinergic Signal. 2021 Sep;17(3):345-370. doi: 10.1007/s11302-021-09785-8. Epub 2021 May 12.
Cancer comprises a collection of diseases that occur in almost any tissue and it is characterized by an abnormal and uncontrolled cell growth that results in tumor formation and propagation to other tissues, causing tissue and organ malfunction and death. Despite the undeniable improvement in cancer diagnostics and therapy, there is an urgent need for new therapeutic and preventive strategies with improved efficacy and fewer side effects. In this context, purinergic signaling emerges as an interesting candidate as a cancer biomarker or therapeutic target. There is abundant evidence that tumor cells have significant changes in the expression of purinergic receptors, which comprise the G-protein coupled P2Y and AdoR families of receptors and the ligand-gated ion channel P2X receptors. Tumor cells also exhibit changes in the expression of nucleotidases and other enzymes involved in nucleotide metabolism, and the concentrations of extracellular nucleotides are significantly higher than those observed in normal cells. In this review, we will focus on the potential role of purinergic signaling in the ten most lethal cancers (lung, breast, colorectal, liver, stomach, prostate, cervical, esophagus, pancreas, and ovary), which together are responsible for more than 5 million annual deaths.
癌症包括几乎发生在任何组织中的一系列疾病,其特征是异常和不受控制的细胞生长,导致肿瘤形成和向其他组织传播,从而导致组织和器官功能障碍和死亡。尽管癌症诊断和治疗方面取得了不可否认的进展,但仍迫切需要新的治疗和预防策略,以提高疗效和减少副作用。在这种情况下,嘌呤能信号转导作为癌症生物标志物或治疗靶点具有很大的吸引力。有大量证据表明,肿瘤细胞中嘌呤能受体的表达发生了重大变化,这些受体包括 G 蛋白偶联的 P2Y 和 AdoR 受体家族以及配体门控离子通道 P2X 受体。肿瘤细胞还表现出核苷酸代谢相关的核苷酸酶和其他酶的表达变化,细胞外核苷酸的浓度明显高于正常细胞。在这篇综述中,我们将重点讨论嘌呤能信号在十种最致命癌症(肺癌、乳腺癌、结直肠癌、肝癌、胃癌、前列腺癌、宫颈癌、食管癌、胰腺癌和卵巢癌)中的潜在作用,这十种癌症每年导致超过 500 万人死亡。