Growth Factors and Receptor Tyrosine Kinases in Development, Regeneration, and Tumorigenesis: 2nd Edition
A special issue of Cancers (ISSN 2072-6694). This special issue belongs to the section "Molecular Cancer Biology".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 November 2025 | Viewed by 2046
Special Issue Editor
Interests: growth factors; signal transduction mechanisms; receptors; kinases; angiogenesis
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Members of the family of receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs) have been shown to have important functions in embryonal development, wound healing, and tissue homeostasis. Based on their structural properties, the 58 members of the family can be divided in 20 subfamilies; their extracellular ligand-binding parts are composed of different combinations of domains, including immunoglobulin-like, epidermal growth factor-like, fibronectin-like, cysteine-rich, cadherin-like, and discoidin-like domains, and their intracellular parts contain intrinsic tyrosine-kinase domains.
Many, maybe all, RTKs are activated by dimerization or oligomerization, induced by ligand binding. This results in the auto-phosphorylation of certain tyrosine residues in the intracellular parts of the receptors, creating docking sites for SH2-domain-containing molecules, as well as in the tyrosine phosphorylation of specific downstream signaling molecules. The activated signaling pathways leads to the stimulation of cell growth, survival, and migration. Over-activity, by mutation, amplification, or overexpression, of RTKs are common in tumorigenesis, and more than half of the known RTKs have been implicated as drivers of various types of tumors. Tyrosine kinase inhibitors have therefore been developed and are used clinically, with beneficial effects in the treatment of certain tumors.
This Special Issue will highlight recent developments in our understanding about the normal function of RTKs and their role in disease, as well as their structural properties.
Prof. Dr. Carl-Henrik Heldin
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- receptor
- tyrosine kinase
- growth factor
- signal transduction
- development regeneration tumorigenesis
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