Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2023 Sep 18:14:1170571.
doi: 10.3389/fgene.2023.1170571. eCollection 2023.

Exploiting the molecular subtypes and genetic landscape in pancreatic cancer: the quest to find effective drugs

Nnenna Elebo  1   2 , Ebtesam A Abdel-Shafy  2   3 , Stefano Cacciatore  2 , Ekene Emmanuel Nweke  1
Affiliations
Review

Exploiting the molecular subtypes and genetic landscape in pancreatic cancer: the quest to find effective drugs

Nnenna Elebo et al. Front Genet. .

Abstract

Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a very lethal disease that typically presents at an advanced stage and is non-compliant with most treatments. Recent technologies have helped delineate associated molecular subtypes and genetic variations yielding important insights into the pathophysiology of this disease and having implications for the identification of new therapeutic targets. Drug repurposing has been evaluated as a new paradigm in oncology to accelerate the application of approved or failed target-specific molecules for the treatment of cancer patients. This review focuses on the impact of molecular subtypes on key genomic alterations in PDAC, and the progress made thus far. Importantly, these alterations are discussed in light of the potential role of drug repurposing in PDAC.

Keywords: Pancreatic Cancer; drug repurposing; genomics; mutations; precision medicine.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Drug Repurposing Therapy in Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma Targeting Genomic Alterations and Molecular Subtypes. The Tumor microenvironment of PDAC is complex and heterogeneous. Several molecular subtypes such as classical, basal-like, squamous, immunogenic and ADEX have been identified thus far with diverse molecular perturbations. Repurposed drugs such as hydroxychloroquine, chloroquine, Nitroxoline, Perbendazole, Nitraparib, and Rucaparib are used in targeting genomic mutations in PDAC.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

References

    1. Akay M., Funingana I. G., Patel G., Mustapha R., Gjafa E., Ng T., et al. (2021). An in-depth review of Niraparib in ovarian cancer: mechanism of action, clinical efficacy and future directions. Oncol. Ther. 9 (2), 347–364. 10.1007/s40487-021-00167-z - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Al Baghdadi T., Halabi S., Garrett-Mayer E., Mangat P. K., Ahn E. R., Sahai V., et al. (2019). Palbociclib in patients with pancreatic and biliary cancer with CDKN2A alterations: results from the targeted agent and profiling utilization registry study. JCO Precis. Oncol. 3 (3), 1–8. 10.1200/PO.19.00124 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Algire C., Moiseeva O., Deschênes-Simard X., Amrein L., Petruccelli L., Birman E., et al. (2012). Metformin reduces endogenous reactive oxygen species and associated DNA damage. Cancer Prev. Res. (Phila). 5 (4), 536–543. 10.1158/1940-6207.CAPR-11-0536 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Amin S., Mhango G., Lin J., Aronson A., Wisnivesky J., Boffetta P., et al. (2016). Metformin improves survival in patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma and pre-existing diabetes: A propensity score analysis. Official J. Am. Coll. Gastroenterology 111 (9), 1350–1357. 10.1038/ajg.2016.288 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Bailey P., Chang D. K., Nones K., Johns A. L., Patch A. M., Gingras M. C., et al. (2016). Genomic analyses identify molecular subtypes of pancreatic cancer. Nature 531 (7592), 47–52. 10.1038/nature16965 - DOI - PubMed

Grants and funding

EEN is supported by the National Research Foundation (NRF) (Grant number: 138367). SC is supported by the National Research Foundation (NRF) (Grant number: 138113).

LinkOut - more resources

-