ABSTRACT

Testicular germ cell tumours (TGCTs) are heterogeneous neoplasms mostly affecting young-adult men. Despite high survival rates, some patients with disseminated disease acquire cisplatin resistance, entailing the need for less toxic therapies. Epigenetic alterations constitute an important feature of TGCTs, which are also implicated in resistance mechanism(s). These alterations might be used as potential targets to design epigenetic drugs. To date, several compounds have been explored and evaluated regarding therapeutic efficacy, making use of pre-clinical studies with in vitro and in vivo models, and some have already been explored in clinical trials. This review summarizes the several epigenetic mechanisms at play in these neoplasms, the current challenges in the field of TGCTs and critically reviews available data on ‘epidrugs’ in those tumours.

摘要

睾丸生殖细胞肿瘤 (TGCT) 是异质性肿瘤，主要影响年轻成年男性。尽管存活率很高，但一些患有播散性疾病的患者获得了顺铂耐药性，从而需要毒性较小的治疗。表观遗传改变构成了 TGCT 的一个重要特征，这也与耐药机制有关。这些改变可能被用作设计表观遗传药物的潜在目标。迄今为止，已经利用体外和体内的临床前研究对几种化合物的治疗功效进行了探索和评估模型，有些已经在临床试验中进行了探索。本综述总结了在这些肿瘤中起作用的几种表观遗传机制、TGCT 领域当前面临的挑战，并批判性地回顾了这些肿瘤中“表观药物”的可用数据。