Novel Anti-Cancer Agents Targeting Triple-Negative Breast Cancer

Breast cancer is the second leading malignant disease in women worldwide. Over decades of research, breast cancer classification by molecular subtypes has become widely accepted. Based on the expression of estrogen or progesterone receptors, HER-2, and Ki-67, clinicians can tailor treatments including endocrine therapy, chemotherapy, targeted therapy, radiotherapy, or surgery. This has improved therapeutic outcomes and minimised side effects, particularly in Luminal and HER-2 overexpressing breast cancers through targeted agents. However, triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), lacking specific molecular targets, remains challenging. Chemotherapy is still the primary adjuvant therapy, but it often fails to achieve optimal outcomes and causes collateral damage to healthy cells. In the past five years, new insights into the molecular mechanisms of TNBC have opened up potential therapeutic strategies, highlighting the need for more effective treatments.
TNBC gets its name not because it’s an integral molecular subtype but for the lack of specific therapeutic targets and the fact that it can’t be stratified into other subtypes. Hence, TNBC is a kind of solid tumour with great heterogeneity, bringing troubles to cure but also offering opportunities to treat it. Despite eliminating all TNBC cells, which remains a long way from being a cure, inhibiting the most malignant cells within the TNBC. Based on this mentality, researchers put their efforts into targeting cancer stem cells, searching for new targets for drug-resistant TNBC cells, developing antibody-drug conjugates which may enhance agents’ effects, as well as finding immune-sensitive parts of TNBC cells which may benefit from immunotherapy.
Our aim in this Research Topic is to introduce new druggable targets and anti-TNBC agents, and elucidate molecular mechanisms underlying TNBC. This may contribute to opening new avenues to curtail the TNBC treatment strategy.
We welcome Original Research Articles, Reviews, and Mini-Reviews. The topics of interest for this Research Topic include:
• Novel druggable targets in TNBC
• Novel anti-TNBC agents (small molecules as well as antibodies).
• Role of novel mechanisms in the regulation of TNBC
• Detailed classification of TNBC
• Crosstalk between tumour microenvironmental components and TNBC
• Optimising the use of immunotherapy in TNBC
Please note: Manuscripts consisting solely of bioinformatics, computational analysis, or predictions of public databases which are not accompanied by validation (independent clinical or patient cohort, or biological validation in vitro or in vivo, which are not based on public databases) are not suitable for publication in this journal.