Journal
ONCOTARGET
Volume 6, Issue 11, Pages 8648-8662Publisher
IMPACT JOURNALS LLC
DOI: 10.18632/oncotarget.3257
Keywords
HIF-1 alpha; endocrine resistance; zoledronic acid; estrogen receptor; breast cancer
Categories
Funding
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [NSFC30600725, NSFC81301246]
- Shanghai United Developing Technology Project of Municipal Hospitals [SHDC12010116]
- Key Clinical Program of the Ministry of Health
- Novartis
- AstraZeneca
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Resistance is an obstacle to endocrine therapy for breast cancer. We measured levels of hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF)-1 alpha in 52 primary breast cancer patients before and after receiving neoadjuvant endocrine therapy with letrozole for at least 3 months. Pre-treatment levels of HIF-1 alpha were associated with negative clinical outcome. Furthermore, levels of HIF-1 alpha were increased in post-treatment residual tumors compared with those in pre-treatment biopsy samples. In animal studies, xenografts stably expressing HIF-1 alpha were resistant to endocrine therapy with fulvestrant compared with the effects in control xenografts. Additionally, HIF-1 alpha transcription was inhibited by zoledronic acid, a conventional drug for the treatment of postmenopausal osteoporosis, and was accompanied by a marked inhibition of the RAS/MAPK/ERK1/2 pathway. HIF-1 alpha is a determinant of resistance to endocrine therapy and should be considered as a potential therapeutic target for overcoming endocrine resistance in estrogen receptor (ER)-positive breast cancer. In addition, zoledronic acid may overcome endocrine resistance in ER-positive human breast cancer by targeting HIF-1 alpha transcription through inhibition of the RAS/MAPK/ERK1/2 pathway. Clinical studies on the administration of zoledronic acid as a second line treatment in patients who failed endocrine therapy should be considered to improve therapeutic outcomes in breast cancer patients.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available