Current pharmaceutical design
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Review
The natural tumor suppressor protein maspin and potential application in non small cell lung cancer.
The grim prognosis of lung cancer, that has an overall 10-15% survival at 5 years, remains in the US the leading cause of cancer mortality, provides a compelling rationale for studying the molecular basis of this malignancy. Surmising the common, general association with smoking, lung cancers differ at the microscopic, anatomical, epidemiological and clinical level and harbor complex genetic and epigenetic alterations. Currently, lung cancer is divided into small cell lung carcinoma (SCLC) and non small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC) for the purpose of clinical management. (NSCLC) constitutes 80-85% of lung cancers and is further divided into histological subtypes such as adenocarcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, and large cell carcinoma, etc. ⋯ Maspin is an epithelial specific member of the serine protease inhibitor (serpin) superfamily but recently identified as an endogenous inhibitor of histone deacetylase 1 (HDAC1). This novel biochemical activity coincides with a consensus emerged recently from the evidence that nuclear maspin confers better differentiated epithelial phenotypes, decreased tumor angiogenesis, increased tumor sensitivity to drug-induced apoptosis, and a more favorable prognosis. In the current review, we discuss the evidence that maspin may be a marker that stratifies the progression and prognosis of different subtypes of NSCLC.