» Articles » PMID: 36672617

Targeting PI3K/AKT/mTOR Pathway in Breast Cancer: From Biology to Clinical Challenges

Abstract

Breast cancer (BC) is the most common women cancer and cause of cancer death. Despite decades of scientific progress in BC treatments, the clinical benefit of new drugs is modest in several cases. The phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K)/protein kinase B (AKT)/mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) pathway mutations are frequent in BC (20-40%) and are significant causes of aggressive tumor behavior, as well as treatment resistance. Improving knowledge of the PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway is an urgent need. This review aims to highlight the central role of PI3K-mTORC1/C2 mutations in the different BC subtypes, in terms of clinical outcomes and treatment efficacy. The broad base of knowledge in tumor biology is a key point for personalized BC therapy in the precision medicine era.

Citing Articles

Targeting STAT3 for Cancer Therapy: Focusing on Y705, S727, or Dual Inhibition?.

Berkley K, Zalejski J, Sharma A Cancers (Basel). 2025; 17(5).

PMID: 40075607 PMC: 11898704. DOI: 10.3390/cancers17050755.


Metabolic Switch in Endocrine Resistant Estrogen Receptor Positive Breast Cancer.

Brechbuhl H, Han A, Paul K, Nemkov T, Ramachandran S, Ward A bioRxiv. 2025; .

PMID: 39763830 PMC: 11703175. DOI: 10.1101/2024.12.28.630631.


Epidemiology, risk factors and mechanism of breast cancer and atrial fibrillation.

Guo X, Zuo Z, Wang X, Sun Y, Xu D, Liu G Cardiooncology. 2024; 10(1):92.

PMID: 39716319 PMC: 11665102. DOI: 10.1186/s40959-024-00298-y.


Direct comparison of an ultrasensitive real-time PCR assay with droplet digital PCR for the detection of hotspot mutations in primary tumors, plasma cell-free DNA and paired CTC-derived gDNAs.

Smilkou S, Kaklamanis L, Balgouranidou I, Linardou H, Papatheodoridi A, Zagouri F Front Oncol. 2024; 14:1435559.

PMID: 39711963 PMC: 11659196. DOI: 10.3389/fonc.2024.1435559.


Practical treatment strategies and novel therapies in the phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K)/protein kinase B (AKT)/mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) pathway in hormone receptor-positive/human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-negative....

Fanucci K, Giordano A, Erick T, Tolaney S, Sammons S ESMO Open. 2024; 9(12):103997.

PMID: 39674130 PMC: 11699375. DOI: 10.1016/j.esmoop.2024.103997.


References
1.
Mukhopadhyay S, Saqcena M, Foster D . Synthetic lethality in KRas-driven cancer cells created by glutamine deprivation. Oncoscience. 2015; 2(10):807-8. PMC: 4671930. DOI: 10.18632/oncoscience.253. View

2.
Hagemann I . Molecular Testing in Breast Cancer: A Guide to Current Practices. Arch Pathol Lab Med. 2016; 140(8):815-24. DOI: 10.5858/arpa.2016-0051-RA. View

3.
Chae Y, Davis A, Jain S, Santa-Maria C, Flaum L, Beaubier N . Concordance of Genomic Alterations by Next-Generation Sequencing in Tumor Tissue versus Circulating Tumor DNA in Breast Cancer. Mol Cancer Ther. 2017; 16(7):1412-1420. DOI: 10.1158/1535-7163.MCT-17-0061. View

4.
Piccart M, Hortobagyi G, Campone M, Pritchard K, Lebrun F, Ito Y . Everolimus plus exemestane for hormone-receptor-positive, human epidermal growth factor receptor-2-negative advanced breast cancer: overall survival results from BOLERO-2†. Ann Oncol. 2014; 25(12):2357-2362. PMC: 6267855. DOI: 10.1093/annonc/mdu456. View

5.
Martin M, Chan A, Dirix L, OShaughnessy J, Hegg R, Manikhas A . A randomized adaptive phase II/III study of buparlisib, a pan-class I PI3K inhibitor, combined with paclitaxel for the treatment of HER2- advanced breast cancer (BELLE-4). Ann Oncol. 2016; 28(2):313-320. DOI: 10.1093/annonc/mdw562. View