An overview of the various roles and the effect of cathepsin D in the microenvironment of various tumors

Cancer is still a major and leading health problem worldwide. Lack of early detection, chemoresistance and cancer recurrence mean that extensive research and development is needed in this area.

This review study was conducted based on the Prism protocol and searching in international databases (PubMed, Google Scholar, Science). According to the desired strategy, all articles published in English until September 2022 were evaluated using the keywords "microenvironment", "cancer" and "cathepsin D" and the combination of these search words and selected articles with the PRISMA checklist.

The complexity of the tumor microenvironment in the biological environment creates greater challenges for safe, selective and targeted treatments. Existing strategies such as chemotherapy, radiotherapy and anti-angiogenic treatments improve the survival of patients without disease progression and moderately, however, they are all associated with side effects. Therefore, targeting potential candidates in the microenvironment, such as extracellular cathepsin D (CathD), which plays an important role in the development of breast and ovarian cancer, can be a breakthrough in cancer treatment, especially with the use of new therapeutic methods such as immunotherapy and nanotechnology-based therapy.

Finally, in this review study on CathD, the general conclusion was that this compound can be carefully investigated by researchers as a pro-cancer agent and specifically as a pro-angiogenic agent that functions functionally in the tumor microenvironment. take Therefore, possible ways to target this protein as a new therapeutic target compound are discussed and reviewed in research works based on laboratory and clinical processes