G-quadruplexes: a promising target for cancer therapy
DNA and RNA can fold into a variety of alternative conformations. In recent years, a particular nucleic acid structure was discussed to play a role in malignant transformation and cancer development. This structure is called a G-quadruplex (G4). G4 structure formation can drive genome instability by...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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BioMed Central
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7905668/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33632214 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12943-021-01328-4 |
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author | Kosiol, Nils Juranek, Stefan Brossart, Peter Heine, Annkristin Paeschke, Katrin |
author_facet | Kosiol, Nils Juranek, Stefan Brossart, Peter Heine, Annkristin Paeschke, Katrin |
author_sort | Kosiol, Nils |
collection | PubMed |
description | DNA and RNA can fold into a variety of alternative conformations. In recent years, a particular nucleic acid structure was discussed to play a role in malignant transformation and cancer development. This structure is called a G-quadruplex (G4). G4 structure formation can drive genome instability by creating mutations, deletions and stimulating recombination events. The importance of G4 structures in the characterization of malignant cells was currently demonstrated in breast cancer samples. In this analysis a correlation between G4 structure formation and an increased intratumor heterogeneity was identified. This suggests that G4 structures might allow breast cancer stratification and supports the identification of new personalized treatment options. Because of the stability of G4 structures and their presence within most human oncogenic promoters and at telomeres, G4 structures are currently tested as a therapeutic target to downregulate transcription or to block telomere elongation in cancer cells. To date, different chemical molecules (G4 ligands) have been developed that aim to target G4 structures. In this review we discuss and compare G4 function and relevance for therapeutic approaches and their impact on cancer development for three cancer entities, which differ significantly in their amount and type of mutations: pancreatic cancer, leukemia and malignant melanoma. G4 structures might present a promising new strategy to individually target tumor cells and could support personalized treatment approaches in the future. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7905668 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-79056682021-02-25 G-quadruplexes: a promising target for cancer therapy Kosiol, Nils Juranek, Stefan Brossart, Peter Heine, Annkristin Paeschke, Katrin Mol Cancer Review DNA and RNA can fold into a variety of alternative conformations. In recent years, a particular nucleic acid structure was discussed to play a role in malignant transformation and cancer development. This structure is called a G-quadruplex (G4). G4 structure formation can drive genome instability by creating mutations, deletions and stimulating recombination events. The importance of G4 structures in the characterization of malignant cells was currently demonstrated in breast cancer samples. In this analysis a correlation between G4 structure formation and an increased intratumor heterogeneity was identified. This suggests that G4 structures might allow breast cancer stratification and supports the identification of new personalized treatment options. Because of the stability of G4 structures and their presence within most human oncogenic promoters and at telomeres, G4 structures are currently tested as a therapeutic target to downregulate transcription or to block telomere elongation in cancer cells. To date, different chemical molecules (G4 ligands) have been developed that aim to target G4 structures. In this review we discuss and compare G4 function and relevance for therapeutic approaches and their impact on cancer development for three cancer entities, which differ significantly in their amount and type of mutations: pancreatic cancer, leukemia and malignant melanoma. G4 structures might present a promising new strategy to individually target tumor cells and could support personalized treatment approaches in the future. BioMed Central 2021-02-25 /pmc/articles/PMC7905668/ /pubmed/33632214 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12943-021-01328-4 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. |
spellingShingle | Review Kosiol, Nils Juranek, Stefan Brossart, Peter Heine, Annkristin Paeschke, Katrin G-quadruplexes: a promising target for cancer therapy |
title | G-quadruplexes: a promising target for cancer therapy |
title_full | G-quadruplexes: a promising target for cancer therapy |
title_fullStr | G-quadruplexes: a promising target for cancer therapy |
title_full_unstemmed | G-quadruplexes: a promising target for cancer therapy |
title_short | G-quadruplexes: a promising target for cancer therapy |
title_sort | g-quadruplexes: a promising target for cancer therapy |
topic | Review |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7905668/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33632214 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12943-021-01328-4 |
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