GABAergic signaling as a potential therapeutic target in cancers

作者：Yihui Yang, Liwen Ren, Wan Li, Yizhi Zhang, Sen Zhang, Binbin Ge, Hong Yang, Guanhua Du, Bo Tang, Hongquan Wang, Jinhua Wang · 发表于：Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy · 年份：2023 · DOI：10.1016/j.biopha.2023.114410 · 被引用次数：60 · 研究领域：Cancer, Stress, Anesthesia, and Immune Response、Tryptophan and brain disorders、Neuroscience and Neuropharmacology Research

GABA is the most common inhibitory neurotransmitter in the vertebrate central nervous system. Synthesized by glutamic acid decarboxylase, GABA could specifically bind with two GABA receptors to transmit inhibition signal stimuli into cells: GABAA receptor and GABAB receptor. In recent years, emerging studies revealed that GABAergic signaling not only participated in traditional neurotransmission but was involved in tumorigenesis as well as regulating tumor immunity. In this review, we summarize the existing knowledge of the GABAergic signaling pathway in tumor proliferation, metastasis, progression, stemness, and tumor microenvironment as well as the underlying molecular mechanism. We also discussed the therapeutical advances in targeting GABA receptors to provide the theoretical basis for pharmacological intervention of GABAergic signaling in cancer treatment especially immunotherapy.