Huntingtin-interacting protein 1 in cancer progression: a path less explored

Huntingtin-interacting protein 1 (HIP1) is a multi-domain heterodimeric protein mainly involved in clathrin-mediated endocytosis and vesicle trafficking. Besides endocytosis, HIP1 regulates proliferation, metastasis, and apoptosis by interacting with different binding partners in different cell types. HIP1 is overexpressed in most cancers and some oncogenic fusion proteins of receptor tyrosine kinases with HIP1 are reported. Clinical significance of HIP1-ALK fusion is being explored in lung cancers, where HIP1 functions as a metastatic suppressor. In some cancers, such as prostate and gliomas, and Merkel cell carcinoma raised HIP1 antibodies in sera can function as prognostic markers. However, there is limited information on the molecular regulators and mechanisms mediated through HIP1 in cancers. In this review, we systematically examine the recent literature on HIP1 to examine its role in various cancer types.