Onkológia 5/2010

New mechanism of action in the treatment of renal cell carcinoma: m-TOR – a novel target

PI3K/Akt/mTOR is a crucial signal transduction pathway taking part in the process of cancerogenesis as well as a target for anticancer therapy. Inhibition of this pathway has become a promising target for cancer research, since alterations at distinct points of this signal transduction pathway have been observed in multiple cancer types. HIF-alpha over-expression, typical for renal cell carcinoma, leads to accumulation of proangiogenic factors and angiogenesis induction. Currently, there are 2 approaches of anticancer management using different mechanisms of action: anti-VEGF (R) therapy, targeting mostly tumour angiogenesis, and mTOR inhibitors that exhibit a direct anti-tumour effect leading to cell cycle arrest in G1 phase and apoptosis induction.

Keywords: mTOR, mTOR inhibition, HIF-alpha, VEGF (R) targeted therapy.