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Review
. 2016 Jun 15;12(3):135-139.
doi: 10.6026/97320630012135. eCollection 2016.

Molecular mechanisms and mode of tamoxifen resistance in breast cancer

Shazia Ali  1 , Mahmood Rasool  2 , Hani Chaoudhry  3 , Peter N Pushparaj  2 , Prakash Jha  4 , Abdul Hafiz  5 , Maryam Mahfooz  4 , Ghufrana Abdus Sami  6 , Mohammad Azhar Kamal  7 , Sania Bashir  6 , Ashraf Ali  7 , Mohammad Sarwar Jamal  7
Affiliations
Review

Molecular mechanisms and mode of tamoxifen resistance in breast cancer

Shazia Ali et al. Bioinformation. .

Abstract

Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers in women around the globe Tamoxifen is used for the last 40 years as an endocrine therapy for breast cancer. This resulted in the reduction of mortality rate by 30% and it still remains one of the most effective therapies against breast cancer. However, resistance against tamoxifen is still one of the major hurdles in the effective management of breast cancer. Intense research has been conducted in the past decade to further explore its resistance mechanism, but still a lot of research will be needed to effectively alleviate this problem. Several biochemical factors and molecular pathways, such as the modulation of ER signaling, upregulation of growth factors had been observed as key factors for tamoxifen resistance (TR). After, initial therapy of five to ten years, breast cancer patients develops resistance towards this drug. The resistance leads to the development of other cancers like uterine cancer. Here, we briefly explore all the molecular events related to tamoxifen resistance and focus on its mechanism of action as well as other pharmacological approaches to better its beneficial effects in the treatment of breast carcinoma.

Keywords: Breast carcinoma; Endocrine therapy; Estrogen receptor; Tamoxifen resistance.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Competitive Binding of Estrogen and Tamoxifen to Estrogen Receptor in Breast Cancer.The binding of estrogen with estrogen receptor is displaced by tamoxifen which binds to estrogen receptor and inhibit cell proliferation. The molecular mechanism of Tamoxifen-mediated inhibition of cell growth and cell proliferation in estrogen-induced breast cancer was obtained using Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (Qiagen, USA).
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