Inhibitor of apoptosis proteins in breast cancer

Excerpt

Resistance to apoptosis is a hallmark of cancer. Decreased sensitivity to apoptosis leads to an elevated therapeutic threshold for classical interventions such as chemotherapy or radiotherapy. The Inhibitor of Apoptosis Proteins (IAPs) are a family of proteins that prevent caspases from inducing apoptosis. Targeting IAPs therefore represents a potential avenue for reducing the threshold to apoptosis and improving therapeutic effectiveness. There are eight human IAP family members, including XIAP, Survivin, cIAP1, cIAP2, Livin, NAIP and Apollon. Although some studies have indicated altered levels of Survivin and XIAP in several tumour models, no study to date has examined the role of all members of the IAP family in cancer progression. We aim (i) to investigate the expression of the whole family of IAPs across a wide range breast cancer cell lines and tumour samples at both the RNA and protein level, and (ii) to determine whether targeting IAPs alters susceptibility to apoptosis. …