• Signaling pathway-based Drug Repurposing approach a tool for treatment of breast cancer
  • Atena Vaghf,1,*
    1. Ph.D student of Medical Biotechnology, Faculty of advanced Technology, Shahrekord University of Medical Science, Shahrekord, Iran


  • Introduction: Breast cancer is as one of the leading causes of malignant morbidity and cancer-related mortality among women worldwide. Signaling pathway play vital role in cell growth, proliferation and survival of breast cancer. Also, dysregulated signaling pathway is linked to poor treatment outcomes. Drug repositioning or repurposing is a promising field in drug discovery approach that identifies already-approved or investigational drugs to new diseases. Thus, this review provide a general overview of the anti-cancer mechanisms of drugs repurposed on the signaling pathways of breast cancer.
  • Methods: Several strategies have been used to identify drug repurposed effect on the signaling pathway in breast cancer with the "Drug repurposing" OR "Drug repositioning" AND "Breast cancer" AND "Signaling pathway" keywords which cited in Pubmed and Google scholar from 2015-2023. Finally, 21 included and 79 excluded articles were extracted from 100 paper published.
  • Results: A Several studies reveals that 30 drugs repurposed can affect the signaling pathway involved in breast cancer. Most of drugs were non-oncology drug repurposing type such as Pimozide, Aspirin, Metformin, Simvastatin, Niclosamide, Everolimus, Erlotinib, Amprenavir, Levofloxacin, Lamotrigine, Piperlongumine, Buformin, Tamoxifen, Pyrvinium pamoate and etc. Beside, most of the drugs repurposed significant inhibits proliferation, migration, and invasion by targeting PI3K-AKT pathway. Drug repurposed that can target Notch and TGF-β signaling pathway were less frequently introduced.
  • Conclusion: Breast cancer is associated by dysregulation of different signaling pathway. Our approach seems to offer promise for the identification the drug candidates that can inhibits aberrant signaling pathway in breast cancer. Our findings also showing that treatment with non-oncology drug repurposing is associated with lower risk mortality in breast cancer patients.
  • Keywords: Breast cancer, Drug repurposing, Drug repositioning, Signaling pathway