Magazine Journal of Experimental and Clinical Cancer Researchhas reported A study with promising results in triple negative breast cancer, even in those tumors resistant to traditional BET inhibitors. Specifically, researchers from CIBER Cancer (CIBERONC) have analyzed the efficacy in the treatment of triple negative breast cancer of BET-PROTAC drugs, which inhibit and favor the degradation of BET proteins, a family of proteins that plays a key role in oncogenic processes.
It should be remembered that BET (Bromodomain and Extraterminal proteins) proteins seem to play a critical role in oncogenic processes. Therefore, there are already drugs to attack these proteins., Called PROTACs (Proteolysis targeting chimeric). They combine inhibition of their pharmacological targets with the ability to degrade them through the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway. Within this type of molecules are the BET-PROTAC, which inhibit and at the same time favor the degradation of BET proteins.
Development of new targeted therapies
In this sense, this new study showed promising results in models of triple negative breast cancer cell lines, both sensitive and resistant to traditional BET inhibitors. According to the researchers, “apart from this in vitro efficacy, in animals implanted with triple negative breast cancer cells that had become resistant to BET protein inhibitor drugs, these compounds clearly inhibited tumor growth.” Thus, the results open the door to the development of new therapies aimed at this type of tumors.
This is a promising investigation, since approximately 15 percent of breast tumors fall into the triple negative subtype, which is characterized by a poor prognosis, a higher rate of relapse than the rest of the subtypes, greater metastatic capacity and usually affect more young people.