Microtubule-Associated Protein ATIP3, an Emerging Target for Personalized Medicine in Breast Cancer

• Published in: Cells (Basel, Switzerland) Vol. 10; no. 5; p. 1080
• Main Authors: Haykal, Maria M., Rodrigues-Ferreira, Sylvie, Nahmias, Clara
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 01.05.2021; MDPI
• Subjects: Acids; Binding sites; Biomarkers; Breast cancer; Cancer; Cell growth; Cellular Biology; Chemotherapy; Cytoskeleton; Life Sciences; Malignancy; microtubule; MTUS1; Pancreatic cancer; Patients; Polymerization; Polypeptides; Precision medicine; predictive biomarker; prognostic biomarker; Proteins; Review; tumor suppressor; Tumor suppressor genes; Tumors
• ISSN: 2073-4409; 2073-4409
• DOI: 10.3390/cells10051080

Breast cancer is the leading cause of death by malignancy among women worldwide. Clinical data and molecular characteristics of breast tumors are essential to guide clinician’s therapeutic decisions. In the new era of precision medicine, that aims at personalizing the treatment for each patient, there is urgent need to identify robust companion biomarkers for new targeted therapies. This review focuses on ATIP3, a potent anti-cancer protein encoded by candidate tumor suppressor gene MTUS1, whose expression levels are markedly down-regulated in breast cancer. ATIP3 is a microtubule-associated protein identified both as a prognostic biomarker of patient survival and a predictive biomarker of breast tumors response to taxane-based chemotherapy. We present here recent studies pointing out ATIP3 as an emerging anti-cancer protein and a potential companion biomarker to be combined with future personalized therapy against ATIP3-deficient breast cancer.