Targeted therapy for pancreatic cancer

  With the study of pancreatic cancer-related genes and signaling pathways, targeted therapy has become a new approach to treat pancreatic cancer, including direct targeting of cancer cells, such as tumor antigens, growth factor receptors, altered genetic or biochemical pathways, and direct immune response to the host. With the development of clinical studies on targeted therapies, due to the limited technology of targeted therapies and the ability of researchers, there are great challenges in achieving promising results and further research is still needed.  The human epidermal growth factor receptor (HER/erbB) includes EGFR, HER-2, HER-3 and HER-4, which are highly homologous and have similar structures. The main biological effect is to stimulate cell proliferation and differentiation. There are two main types of targeted drugs in this class: monoclonal antibodies that block EGFR binding sites and epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors that inhibit the tyrosine kinase activity of EGFR as a pathway.  Cetuximab is a chimeric monoclonal antibody that is an EGF receptor antagonist and was approved by the FDA on February 12, 2004. It specifically binds to the epidermal growth factor receptor expressed on the surface of normal cells and a variety of cancer cells, and competitively blocks epidermal growth factor and other ligands, thereby downregulating the expression of the epidermal growth factor receptor and blocking its tyrosine kinase phosphorylation and intracellular signaling pathways, inhibiting the proliferation of cancer cells and inducing apoptosis.  Matuzumab Matuzumab (EMD 72000) is also an EGFR monoclonal antibody.  Trastuzumab (Herceptin) Herceptin is a recombinant DNA human monoclonal antibody that selectively acts on human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) to inhibit the proliferation of cancer cells.  Erlotinnib (Tarceva) Erlotinnib inhibits tumor growth by inhibiting the activity of tyrosine kinase, one of the important components in EGFR cells.  2. Vascular endothelial growth factor-targeted drugs (VEGF) V Bevacizumab (Bevacizumab, Avastin) EGF is one of the most important pro-angiogenic factors identified to date, which increases vascular permeability and thus promotes malignant metastasis, and its overexpression is associated with poor prognosis in pancreatic cancer.  Bevacizumab is a recombinant human IgG1 monoclonal antibody (MAb) that acts on VEGFR ligand (i.e. VEGF) and blocks the ligand’s interaction with VEGFR1 and VEGFR2, thus Bevacizumab can inhibit tumor angiogenesis and control tumor growth and metastasis.  Axitinib Axitinib inhibits VEGFR-mediated signal transduction mainly by inhibiting the autophosphorylation of the functional region of VEGFR intracellular tyrosine kinase.  Matrix metalloproteinase inhibitors (MMPIs) Matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) are members of the endopeptidase family, which can degrade basement membrane and extracellular matrix components, and their different expression levels are closely related to tumor prevention, diagnosis, and prognosis.  Marimastat Marimastat belongs to matrix metalloproteinase inhibitor, derived from BB-94.  4.Farnesyltransferase inhibitors Farnesyltransferase inhibitors are a class of antitumor agents that target the Ras family and its downstream signaling pathways.