Endocrine Abstracts

Estrogen receptor alpha (ER) and progesterone receptor (PR) are widely used predictive and prognostic biomarkers in breast cancer. ER is also a well-established therapeutic target. A major unresolved clinical issue is the development of therapy resistance, especially to ER-targeted therapies. We, and others, have observed somatic ESR1 mutations in up to 40% of metastatic tumors obtained from women who have acquired resistance to endocrine therapies. The two most common mutatio...

The early work on the existence and function of the estrogen receptor (ER) primed the nuclear receptor field for an eventual explosive development. Subsequent cloning of receptors led to a realization of a giant (48) super-family of related transcription factors. The cloning of coregulators further enhanced this field in terms of mechanism of action. Nuclear receptors control gene expression by recruiting transcriptional coactivators (or corepressors) to target enhancers/promo...

Prostatic adenocarcinoma (PCa) is the 2nd leading cause of cancer death in US men. Organ-confined PCa can be effectively managed, but there is no durable treatment for advanced disease. Advanced PCa is treated through androgen deprivation therapy, often coupled with direct AR antagonists, as PCa is exquisitely dependent on androgen receptor (AR) activity for survival. Furthermore, recent studies identified AR as a major effector of DNA repair,...