Title:Mucin-based Targeted Pancreatic Cancer Therapy
Volume: 18
Issue: 17
Author(s): Maria P. Torres, Subhankar Chakraborty, Joshua Souchek and Surinder K. Batra
Affiliation:
Keywords:
Pancreatic cancer, mucins, targeted therapy
Abstract: The prognosis of pancreatic cancer (PC) patients is very poor with a five-year survival of less than 5%. One of the major challenges
in developing new therapies for PC is the lack of expression of specific markers by pancreatic tumor cells. Mucins are heavily Oglycosylated
proteins characterized by the presence of short stretches of amino acid sequences repeated several times in tandem. The expression
of several mucins including MUC1, MUC4, MUC5AC, and MUC16 is strongly upregulated in PC. Recent studies have also
demonstrated a link between the aberrant expression and differential overexpression of mucin glycoproteins to the initiation, progression,
and poor prognosis of the disease. These studies have led to increasing recognition of mucins as potential diagnostic markers and therapeutic
targets in PC. In this focused review we present an overview of the therapies targeting mucins in PC, including immunotherapy
(i.e. vaccines, antibodies, and radioimmunoconjugates), gene therapy, and other novel therapeutic strategies.
