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Galectins in prostate and bladder cancer: tumorigenic roles and clinical opportunities

Nature Reviews Urology volume 16, pages 433–445 (2019)Cite this article

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Abstract

Advanced prostate and bladder cancer are two outstanding unmet medical needs for urological oncologists. The high prevalence of these tumours, lack of effective biomarkers and limited effective treatment options highlight the importance of basic research in these diseases. Galectins are a family of β-galactoside-binding proteins that are frequently altered (upregulated or downregulated) in a wide range of tumours and have roles in different stages of tumour development and progression, including immune evasion. In particular, altered expression levels of different members of the galectin family have been reported in prostate and bladder cancers, which, together with the aberrant glycosylation patterns found in tumour cells and the constituent cell types of the tumour microenvironment, can result in malignant transformation and tumour progression. Understanding the roles of galectin family proteins in the development and progression of prostate and bladder cancer could yield key insights to inform the clinical management of these diseases.

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Fig. 1: Classification of the mammalian galectins.
Fig. 2: Roles of galectins in prostate and bladder tumour development and progression.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by grants from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness/ISCIII-FEDER (PI14/00125 and PI17/00199), an AECC-Cataluña 2015 grant and the Generalitat de Catalunya (2014/SGR/143 and 2017/SGR/225) grant to P.N. The authors thank V. A. Raker for valuable comments and input on language.

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Nature Reviews Urology thanks V. V. Glinsky, P. Nangia-Makker and other anonymous reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cancer Research Program, Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM), Barcelona, Spain

    Neus Martínez-Bosch, Alejo Rodriguez-Vida, Ana Rovira, Joan Albanell, Joaquim Bellmunt & Pilar Navarro

  2. Unidad Asociada I+D+i Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM)-Institute of Biomedical Research of Barcelona (IIBB-CSIC), Barcelona, Spain

    Neus Martínez-Bosch & Pilar Navarro

  3. Department of Medical Oncology, Hospital del Mar, Barcelona, Spain

    Alejo Rodriguez-Vida & Joan Albanell

  4. Department of Pathology, Hospital del Mar, Barcelona, Spain

    Núria Juanpere & Josep Lloreta

  5. Bladder Cancer Center, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Joaquim Bellmunt

  6. Institute of Biomedical Research of Barcelona (IIBB-CSIC), Barcelona, Spain

    Pilar Navarro

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Martínez-Bosch, N., Rodriguez-Vida, A., Juanpere, N. et al. Galectins in prostate and bladder cancer: tumorigenic roles and clinical opportunities. Nat Rev Urol 16, 433–445 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41585-019-0183-5

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