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Author Spotlight: Exploring Salidroside's Molecular Mechanisms in Breast Cancer Treatment
Published on: June 9, 2023
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Proteoglycans in Breast Cancer: Friends and Foes.
Noelia Vigo-Díaz1, Rubén López-Cortés2, Isabel Velo-Heleno3
1Inorganic Chemistry Department, Faculty of Sciences, Campus Terra, University of Santiago de Compostela, 27002 Lugo, Spain.
Biomolecules
|December 30, 2025
Summary
Proteoglycans (PGs) are key players in breast cancer (BC), influencing tumor growth, metastasis, and treatment response. Understanding these molecules offers new avenues for precision medicine and potential biomarkers.
Area of Science:
- Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
- Cancer Research
- Extracellular Matrix Biology
Background:
- Proteoglycans (PGs) are crucial for structural integrity and signaling in the extracellular matrix (ECM) and cell surfaces.
- In breast cancer (BC), PGs regulate tissue architecture, cell communication, and tumor-stroma interactions, impacting key processes like adhesion, migration, angiogenesis, immune evasion, and metastasis.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review current research on proteoglycans in breast cancer, focusing on their classification, molecular mechanisms, and clinical correlations.
- To explore the role of PGs in modulating the tumor microenvironment, therapy resistance, immune landscape, and metastatic niche development.
Main Methods:
- Literature-driven review approach.
- Classification of PGs into intracellular, cell-surface, pericellular, extracellular, and small leucine-rich categories, including non-classical PGs.
- Analysis of molecular mechanisms and clinical correlations of PG functions in breast cancer.
Main Results:
- Proteoglycans exhibit diverse functions, acting as either promoters or suppressors of cancer, influencing invasion, and modulating breast cancer subtypes, prognosis, and therapeutic response.
- Specific PGs like syndecans, glypicans, perlecan, versican, biglycan, and decorin are implicated in breast cancer progression and treatment outcomes.
- PGs interact with collagens, growth factors, cytokines, and proteolytic enzymes to modify the ECM and impact therapy resistance, immune modulation, and metastatic niche formation.
Conclusions:
- Proteoglycans are significant modulators of breast cancer, with potential as biomarkers for stratification and liquid biopsies.
- Understanding PG roles in signaling pathways (e.g., Wnt, TGFβ) and the tumor immune landscape enhances their translational prospects and therapeutic utility.
- Proteoglycans are critical for precision medicine approaches in breast cancer management.
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