Here, we summarized the roles and expression of ErbB family in OS and the current development of ErbB-targeted therapeutic strategies including chemotherapies and immunotherapies for OS treatment.
As the sensitivity of only a few tumors to epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) can be explained by the presence of EGFR tyrosine kinase (TK) domain mutations, there is a need to elucidate mechanisms of resistance to EGFR-targeted therapies in OS that do not harbor TK sensitizing mutations to develop new strategies to circumvent resistance to EGFR inhibitors.
We hereby constructed sali-entrapped lipid-polymer nanoparticles labeled with CD133 and EGFR aptamers (CESP) to target both osteosarcoma cells and CSCs.
Areas covered: The identification of genetic driver alterations led to the selection of patients who are most likely to benefit from epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) and rat osteosarcoma (ROS-1) tyrosine kinase inhibitors; on the other hand, in the absence of oncogenic alterations, platinum-based doublet chemotherapy regimens were the cornerstone of treatment.
Nutlin-3 induced the phosphorylation of EGFR, MAPK/ERK kinase (MEK)1/2 and extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK)1/2 in U2OS human osteosarcoma cells harboring wild-type p53.
Seventeen (28.33%), 15 (25.00%) and 15 (25.00%) osteosarcoma specimens presented with amplification of EGFR, ErbB3 and ErbB4 gene, respectively, which were significantly higher compared with non-neoplastic bone tissues.
Immunohistochemistry on primary tumor samples and FACS analysis on primary short-term cultures and four OS cell lines showed that EGFR was consistently expressed.
However, the role of EGFR and HER-2 expression in osteosarcoma survival remains controversial and no previous study has simultaneously investigated the association of the expression of all the four HER family members with the prognostic significance of osteosarcoma.