Abstract
Background
Greater than half of cancer patients experience radiation therapy, for both radical and palliative objectives. It is well known that researches on radiation response mechanisms are conducive to improve the efficacy of cancer radiotherapy. p21 was initially identified as a widespread inhibitor of cyclin-dependent kinases, transcriptionally modulated by p53 and a marker of cellular senescence. It was once considered that p21 acts as a tumour suppressor mainly to restrain cell cycle progression, thereby resulting in growth suppression. With the deepening researches on p21, p21 has been found to regulate radiation responses via participating in multiple cellular processes, including cell cycle arrest, apoptosis, DNA repair, senescence and autophagy. Hence, a comprehensive summary of the p21’s functions in radiation response will provide a new perspective for radiotherapy against cancer.
Methods
We summarize the recent pertinent literature from various electronic databases, including PubMed and analyzed several datasets from Gene Expression Omnibus database. This review discusses how p21 influences the effect of cancer radiotherapy via involving in multiple signaling pathways and expounds the feasibility, barrier and risks of using p21 as a biomarker as well as a therapeutic target of radiotherapy.
Conclusion
p21’s complicated and important functions in cancer radiotherapy make it a promising therapeutic target. Besides, more thorough insights of p21 are needed to make it a safe therapeutic target.
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This work was jointly supported by the National Key Research Program of China (Grant nos. 2018YFC0115700, 2018YFC0115702), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant nos. 11875299, U1532264), the Key Deployment Project of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. KFZD-SW-222) and the National Natural Science Foundation of Chinese Academy of Engineering Physics (Grant no. U1730133).
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Kuang, Y., Kang, J., Li, H. et al. Multiple functions of p21 in cancer radiotherapy. J Cancer Res Clin Oncol 147, 987–1006 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00432-021-03529-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00432-021-03529-2