Candidiasis in breast cancer: Tumor progression or not?
نویسندگان
1 Advanced Therapy Medicinal Product (ATMP) Department, Breast Cancer Research Center, Motamed Cancer Institute, Academic Center for Education, Culture and Research (ACECR), Tehran, Iran
2 Recombinant Vaccine Research Center, Faculty of Pharmacy, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
3 Cancer and Immunology Research Center, Research Institute for Health Development, Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences, Sanandaj, Iran
4 Advanced Therapy Medicinal Product (ATMP) Department, Breast Cancer Research Center, Motamed Cancer Institute, Academic Center for Education, Culture and Research (ACECR), Tehran, Iran
5 Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Advanced Sciences & Technology, Tehran Medical Sciences, Islamic Azad University, (IAUPS), Tehran, Iran
6 Infectious and Tropical Diseases Research Center, Hormozgan Health Institute, Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences, Bandar Abbas, Iran
7 Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Advanced Sciences & Technology, Tehran Medical Sciences, Islamic Azad University, (IAUPS), Tehran, Iran
8 Department of Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences, Sanandaj, Iran
9 Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Basic Sciences, Islamic Azad University, Central Tehran Branch, Tehran, Iran
10 Department of Hematology and Oncology and Stem Cell Transplantation, Firoozgar Hospital, School of Medicine, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
11 Department of Immunology, Shahed University, Tehran, Iran
doi
10.22038/ijbms.2024.75408.16379چکیده
Candida albicans is an “opportunistic fungal agent” in cancer patients that can become colonized in both mucosal and deep tissues and cause severe infections. Most evidence has shown that C. albicans can enhance the progress of different cancers by several mechanisms such as generating virulence factors, participation in endogenous production of pro-inflammatory mediators, and stimulating a wide range of immune cells in the host. The main idea of this review is to describe a range of Candida-used mechanisms that are important in candidiasis-associated malignant processes and cancer development, particularly breast cancer. This review intends to provide a detailed discussion on different regulatory mechanisms of C. albicans that undoubtedly help to open new therapeutic horizons of cancer therapy in patients with fungal infection. The current therapeutic approach is not fully effective in immunocompromised and cancer patients, and further studies are required to find new products with effective antifungal properties and minimal side effects to increase the susceptibility of opportunistic fungal infections to conventional antifungal agents. So, in this situation, a special therapy should be considered to control the infection and simultaneously have the most therapeutic index on tumor patients.
