Abstract
Gero Brockhoff1
1 Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, University Medical Center Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany
Correspondence to:
Gero Brockhoff, email: gero.brockhoff@ukr.de
Keywords: HER4; breast cancer
Received: March 01, 2019 Accepted: April 02, 2019 Published: May 07, 2019
Abstract
The HER4 receptor tyrosine kinase is known to have promiscuous activity in malignant cells, last but not least in breast cancer. Evidently, the prognostic and predictive impact of HER4 expression depends on the expression of different receptor isotypes, the way of receptor activation (ligand dependent vs. independent), and on the complex interaction of the HER4 intracellular domain (4ICD) with intracellular regulative molecules which results in either oncogenic or rather tumor suppressive HER4 activity. Recent data suggest that HER4 unfavorably affects the endocrine treatment of postmenopausal breast cancer patients with tamoxifen and therefore might represent an additional therapeutic target in luminal breast cancer.