Research progress of the role of non-canonical Wnt signaling pathway in ovarian cancer and its potential therapeutic implications

Abstract

Ovarian cancer is a malignant tumor of the female reproductive system with the highest mortality, and involves the aberrant regulation of multiple molecular signaling pathways. As a highly conserved molecular pathway, Wnt signaling pathway plays an important role in embryonic development, tissue homeostasis, and tumorigenesis. Wnt signaling pathway includes canonical Wnt/β-catenin pathway and non-canonical pathway, and the latter mainly includes Wnt/planar cell polarity (Wnt/PCP) pathway and Wnt/Ca2+ pathway. Previous studies have mainly focused on the relationship between the canonical Wnt pathway and tumor progression. Recently, the non-canonical Wnt pathway has gradually received attention, and related researches have enriched the understanding of the non-canonical Wnt pathway in physiological and pathological processes such as tissue development and tumorigenesis. The existing studies suggest that the nonclassical Wnt pathway is abnormally regulated in ovarian cancer and is closely related to the staging and prognosis of ovarian cancer. Non-classical Wnt pathway plays an important role in many biological processes such as proliferation, migration and invasion of ovarian cancer cells, and the changes of this pathway are also related to chemotherapy resistance of ovarian cancer. This article reviews the role of the non-canonical Wnt pathway in ovarian cancer, and discusses the research progress of targeted therapy based on the non-canonical Wnt pathway, aiming to provide new ideas for the development of novel targeted drugs.

Keywords

• ovarian cancer
• non-canonical wnt pathway
• cancer progression
• chemotherapy resistance
• targeted therapy