Growth factors and their receptors.

Breast cancer represents a type of malignancy that is amenable to therapy targeting growth factors and receptors. There is considerable evidence that signaling mechanisms involving growth factors and their receptors are important in the normal development of breast epithelium. Dysregulation of these pathways may contribute to the proliferative, invasive, and metastatic phenotypes of breast cancer cells in humans. Approaches being tested in the preclinical setting include antibodies or peptides that disrupt receptor-ligand interactions as well as other compounds that can interfere with downstream signalling.