Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed malignancy in woman worldwide, and is the second most common cause of death in developed countries. The transformation of a normal cell into a malignant derivate requires the acquisition of diverse genomic and proteomic changes, including enzymatic post-translational modifications (PTMs) on key proteins encompassing critical cell signaling events. PTMs occur on proteins after translation, and regulate several aspects of proteins activity, including their localization, activation and turnover. Deregulation of PTMs can potentially lead to tumorigenesis, and several de-regulated PTM pathways contribute to abnormal cell proliferation during breast tumorigenesis. SUMOylation is a PTM that plays a pivotal role in numerous aspects of cell physiology, including cell cycle regulation, protein trafficking and turnover, and DNA damage repair. Consistently with this, the deregulation of the SUMO pathway is observed in different human pathologies, including breast cancer. In this review we will describe the role of SUMOylation in breast tumorigenesis and its implication for breast cancer therapy.

乳腺癌是全世界女性最常被诊断出的恶性肿瘤，也是发达国家第二大最常见的死亡原因。正常细胞向恶性衍生物的转化需要获得各种基因组和蛋白质组学变化，包括对关键蛋白的酶促翻译后修饰（PTM），包括关键的细胞信号转导事件。PTM在翻译后在蛋白质上发生，并调节蛋白质活性的多个方面，包括其定位，激活和周转。PTM的失控可能导致肿瘤的发生，而几种PTM通路的失控会导致乳腺肿瘤发生过程中细胞的异常增殖。SUMOylation是一种PTM，在细胞生理学的许多方面（包括细胞周期调节，蛋白质运输和周转，以及DNA损伤修复。与此一致的是，在包括乳腺癌在内的不同人类病理学中都观察到了SUMO通路的失控。在这篇综述中，我们将描述SUMOylation在乳腺肿瘤发生中的作用及其对乳癌治疗的意义。