TAM family receptors in cancer biology and therapeutic resistance
A special issue of Cancers (ISSN 2072-6694).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 August 2016) | Viewed by 51423
Special Issue Editors
Interests: TAM family receptors; therapeutic resistance; antibody based therapy; Receptor Tyrosine Kinases
Interests: Head and Neck cancer; PI3K signaling; cancer therapeutics
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs) are cell surface receptors that have the capacity to catalyze the phosphorylation of tyrosine residues on target proteins. Thus, RTKs play essential roles in activating the cell signaling pathways that control a diverse array of cellular functions, including cellular proliferation, migration, survival, angiogenesis, and metabolism. The TAM family of RTKs consists of three receptors, Axl, Tyro, and MerTK. All TAM family receptors have an extracellular ligand binding domain, a single-pass transmembrane domain, an intracellular kinase domain, and a tyrosine containing C-terminal tail. Upon binding to cognate ligands, Gas6 or Protein S, TAM family receptors can homo- or hetero- dimerize, resulting in kinase domain activation and C-terminal tail phosphorylation. The activation of TAM receptors results in signaling down several growth promoting pathways, such as the phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase (PI3K)/AKT, mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK), and protein kinase C (PKC) pathways.
Over the last ten years, TAM family receptors and their ligands have been implicated in the development and progression of several human cancers. These studies have reported TAM receptors to be overexpressed or hyper-activated in many tumor types, correlating with poor patient prognosis. Most recently, the Axl receptor has been found to mediate resistance to several different cancer therapies, including chemotherapy, radiation, anti-epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) therapy, and PI3K inhibitors. Furthermore, TAM family receptors are essential regulators of epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), which results in therapeutic resistance, metastasis, and immune cell suppression. These data demonstrate an important role for TAM receptors in cancer biology and therapeutic response.
This Special Issue will cover subjects related to TAM family receptors in cancer biology and response to therapeutic agents. Thus, a broad focus, ranging from the basic biology of TAM family receptors in tumor cells to the preclinical and clinical evaluation of TAM family inhibitors for the treatment of cancer patients, will be included. Collectively, this issue will advance our knowledge of TAM family receptors in cancer, and will insight new research focused on this family of RTKs in the future.
Prof. Dr. Deric L. Wheeler
Dr. Toni M. Brand
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- cancer
- therapy
- receptor tyrosine kinases
- TAM family receptors
- Axl
- cell signaling
- drug resistance
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