The Proteoglycan Glypican-1 as a Possible Candidate for Innovative Targeted Therapeutic Strategies for Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma

Oral Administration of Cancer Vaccines: Challenges and Future Perspectives

Cancer vaccines, a burgeoning strategy in cancer treatment, are exploring innovative administration routes to enhance patient and medical staff experiences, as well as immunological outcomes. Among these, oral administration has surfaced as a particularly noteworthy approach, which is attributed to its capacity to ignite both humoral and cellular immune responses at systemic and mucosal tiers, thereby potentially bolstering vaccine efficacy comprehensively and durably. Notwithstanding this, the deployment of vaccines through the oral route in a clinical context is impeded by multifaceted challenges, predominantly stemming from the intricacy of orchestrating effective oral immunogenicity and necessitating strategic navigation through gastrointestinal barriers. Based on the immunogenicity of the gastrointestinal tract, this review critically analyses the challenges and recent advances and provides insights into the future development of oral cancer vaccines.

Advances in Immunotherapy and Innovative Therapeutic Approaches for Cancer Treatment: Editorial to the Special Issue "State-of-the-Art Molecular Oncology in Italy"

Cancer remains one of the most common causes of death worldwide, mainly due to late diagnosis and the lack of efficient therapeutic options for patients with advanced diseases [...].

Discovery of potent and noncovalent KRASG12D inhibitors: Structure-based virtual screening and biological evaluation

KRAS^G12D, the most common oncogenic KRAS mutation, is a promising target for the treatment of pancreatic cancer. Herein, we identified four potent and noncovalent KRAS^G12D inhibitors (hits 1-4) by using structure-based virtual screening and biological evaluation. The in vitro assays indicated that the four compounds had sub-nanomolar affinities for KRAS^G12D and showed a dose-dependent inhibitory effect on human pancreatic cancer cells. In particular, the hit compound 3 was the most promising candidate and significantly inhibited the tumor growth of pancreatic cancer in tumor-bearing mice. The hit compound 3 represented a promising starting point for structural optimization in hit-to-lead development. This study shows that hit compound 3 provides a basis for the development of the treatment of cancer driven by KRAS^G12D.