The L-Type Amino Acid Transporter LAT1—An Emerging Target in Cancer
Pascal Häfliger † and Roch-Philippe Charles *
Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine, and Swiss National Center of Competence in Research (NCCR) TransCure, University of Bern, Bühlstrasse 28, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
†
Current address: Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY 10032, USA.
Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2019, 20(10), 2428; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms20102428
Received: 20 March 2019 / Revised: 10 May 2019 / Accepted: 14 May 2019 / Published: 16 May 2019
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Amino Acids Transport and Metabolism 2.0)
Abstract
Chronic proliferation is a major hallmark of tumor cells. Rapidly proliferating cancer cells are highly dependent on nutrients in order to duplicate their cell mass during each cell division. In particular, essential amino acids are indispensable for proliferating cancer cells. Their uptake across the cell membrane is tightly controlled by membrane transporters. Among those, the L-type amino acid transporter LAT1 (SLC7A5) has been repeatedly found overexpressed in a vast variety of cancers. In this review, we summarize the most recent advances in our understanding of the role of LAT1 in cancer and highlight preclinical studies and drug developments underlying the potential of LAT1 as therapeutic target. View Full-TextKeywords:
l-type amino acid transporter LAT1; cancer; preclinical studies; targeted therapy; inhibitor
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).
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Häfliger, P.; Charles, R.-P. The L-Type Amino Acid Transporter LAT1—An Emerging Target in Cancer. Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2019, 20, 2428.
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