Glimpses of the near future: A new generation of mTOR inhibitors

Abstract

The PI3K/AKT/mTOR intracellular signaling pathway is frequently activated in a wide variety of malignant neoplasms, controlling many cancer-related biological processes, such as cell growth and survival, protein translation, cytoskeletal organization and metabolism (Polivka and Janku, 2014; Moschetta et al, 2014). In Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma (HNSCC), aberrant activation of the mTOR pathway is regarded as one of the prevailing cell signaling abnormalities in both HPV− and HPV+ cancers, representing a point of convergence of various genetic and epigenetic alterations (Iglesias-Bartolome et al, 2013). A recent meta-analysis has indicated that abnormal expression of mTOR pathway-related proteins is identified in 74,42% of HNSCC and is significantly associated with poor survival (Marques et al, 2016).

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