Introduction: The mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway(also known as RAS-RAF-MEK-ERK pathway), is an important Intracellular signaling cascade involving in cell growth, differentiation and many other cellular processes. Abnormal activation of the MAPK pathway has been observed in some human cancers. Disregulations in this pathway, arise from mutations in RAS more frequently than alternations in downstream kinases including RAF and MEK. Mutations or amplifications in RAS or RAF genes, activate MAPK signalling through MEK. So direct inhibition of MEK offers promising therapeutic strategies for the cancer treatment.
Methods: The literature search was performed using the Pubmed and Google scholar and Science direct databases between September 2015 to 1019 by combination of terms:”MAPKpathway”,”MEK”,”therapy” and “cancer” as keywords. In all 100 results, we studied 30 articles, which were original articles and were the most relevant to our study. We did not study case reports.
Results: Several MEK inhibitors have showed anticancer activity in patients with Non-small-cell lung carcinoma(NSCLC). Various types of neuroblastoma, colon cancer, BRAF-positive melanoma and hepatocellular carcinoma cells undergo G1 phase arrest and apoptosis by inhibition of MEK, while some breast cancer cell lines were detected to be resistant to MEK inhibitors in pre-clinical studies and early clinical trials.
Conclusion: These results suggest that treatment of cancer with MEK inhibition seems to be a rational approach and the response is higher in patients with NSCLC.