Unveiling role of oncogenic signalling pathways in complicating breast cancer

Heterogeneous nature of breast cancer has significantly affected the overall survival, disease free survival and progression free survival amongst the diseased individuals. Metastasis of cancerous cells to distant sites including bone, lungs, liver, lymph node and others have further exhilarated the adverse effects. However, ER, PR and HER-2 are responsible for normal physiological development of women but in altered conditions they may act as initiator or progressor and so far 5 subtypes of disease have been identified. Alteration of pro-survival, pro-proliferative and anti-apoptotic pathways including JAK/STAT, MAPK, PI3K/AkT/mTOR, NF-κB, BCL2 and several others have induced oncogenic events including epithelial-mesenchymal transition, intra-vasation, extra-vasation and many more. Although several US-FDA approved drugs are available in market to target above mentioned signalling pathways but issues of resistance, side effects have restricted their efficacy. The present review article aims to highlight diverse molecular subtypes and the signalling pathways involved in complicating the disease along with the US-FDA approved drugs to target them. Potential herbal medicine to target the disease have also been emphasized that can be used either as mono-therapeutic approach or in combination with conventional therapeutic regimens to target breast cancer.