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Review
. 2022 Sep 1;14(17):4280.
doi: 10.3390/cancers14174280.

Challenges for Triple Negative Breast Cancer Treatment: Defeating Heterogeneity and Cancer Stemness

Rinad Mahmoud  1   2 , Paloma Ordóñez-Morán  1   2 , Cinzia Allegrucci  1   3   4
Affiliations
Review

Challenges for Triple Negative Breast Cancer Treatment: Defeating Heterogeneity and Cancer Stemness

Rinad Mahmoud et al. Cancers (Basel). .

Abstract

The Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC) subtype is known to have a more aggressive clinical course compared to other breast cancer subtypes. Targeted therapies for this type of breast cancer are limited and patients are mostly treated with conventional chemo- and radio-therapies which are not specific and do not target resistant cells. Therefore, one of the major clinical challenges is to find compounds that target the drug-resistant cell populations which are responsible for reforming secondary tumours. The molecular profiling of the different TNBC subtypes holds a promise for better defining these resistant cells specific to each tumour. To this end, a better understanding of TNBC heterogeneity and cancer stemness is required, and extensive genomic analysis can help to understand the disease complexity and distinguish new molecular drivers that can be targeted in the clinics. The use of persister cancer cell-targeting therapies combined with other therapies may provide a big advance to improve TNBC patients' survival.

Keywords: differentiation; drug resistance; persister cells; phenotype; stemness; triple negative breast cancer; tumour heterogeneity.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
TNBC heterogeneity, showing TNBC subtype’s main histopathology, markers, and signalling pathways according to Lehmann et al. 2021 [19]. Created with BioRender.com, agreement number MS248V9M9Z.
Figure 2
Figure 2
TNBC tumours exhibit intrinsic resistance to therapy due to the presence of cancer stem cells as well as acquired resistance after treatment cycles. Created with BioRender.com, agreement number QB248V9UMD.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Current therapeutics available for TNBC subtypes [14,19,31,68,85,86].
Figure 4
Figure 4
Therapeutic strategies to target CSCs in TNBC. Created with BioRender.com, agreement number IQ248V9PR7.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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