Emerging role of semaphorins as major regulatory signals and potential therapeutic targets in cancer.

摘要: Semaphorins are mainly known as guidance signals in development, acting through receptors called Plexins. However, their role cancer is rapidly emerging the regulation of tumor angiogenesis, growth, cell invasiveness, and metastatic spreading. Intriguingly, activated plexins can transactivate receptor tyrosine kinases, such MET, VEGFR2, FGFR2, ERBB2, lead to distinctive effects a cell-context-dependent manner. Moreover, certain semaphorins concomitantly target endothelial cells, achieve remarkable inhibition angiogenesis associated with anti-metastatic activity. Altogether, these data validate identification semaphorin promising therapeutic targets cancer.