The SIX1-EYA transcriptional complex as a therapeutic target in cancer

• Published in: Expert opinion on therapeutic targets Vol. 19; no. 2; p. 213
• Main Authors: Blevins, Melanie A, Towers, Christina G, Patrick, Aaron N, Zhao, Rui, Ford, Heide L
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England 01-02-2015
• Subjects: Adult; Animals; Breast Neoplasms - drug therapy; Breast Neoplasms - genetics; Breast Neoplasms - pathology; Disease Progression; Female; Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic; Homeodomain Proteins - genetics; Humans; Intracellular Signaling Peptides and Proteins - genetics; Molecular Targeted Therapy; Neoplasm Metastasis - genetics; Neoplasms - drug therapy; Neoplasms - genetics; Neoplasms - pathology; Nuclear Proteins - genetics; Protein Tyrosine Phosphatases - genetics; protein–protein interaction; transcription factor; phosphatase; six1/eyes absent complex; inhibition of transcriptional complexes; metastasis
• ISSN: 1744-7631
• DOI: 10.1517/14728222.2014.978860

The SIX homeodomain proteins and the eyes absent (EYA) family of co-activators form a bipartite transcription factor complex that promotes the proliferation and survival of progenitor cells during organogenesis and is down-regulated in most adult tissues. Abnormal over-expression of SIX1 and EYA in adult tissue is associated with the initiation and progression of diverse tumor types. Importantly, SIX1 and EYA are often co-overexpressed in tumors, and the SIX1-EYA2 interaction has been shown to be critical for metastasis in a breast cancer model. The EYA proteins also contain protein tyrosine phosphatase activity, which plays an important role in breast cancer growth and metastasis as well as directing cells to the repair pathway upon DNA damage.
This review provides a summary of the SIX1/EYA complex as it relates to development and disease and the current efforts to therapeutically target this complex.
Recently, there have been an increasing number of studies suggesting that targeting the SIX1/EYA transcriptional complex will potently inhibit tumor progression. Although current attempts to develop inhibitors targeting this complex are still in the early stages, continued efforts toward developing better compounds may ultimately result in effective anti-cancer therapies.