Inhibitors Targeting YAP in Gastric Cancer: Current Status and Future Perspectives

Abstract

Gastric cancer (GC) is one of the most common cancers globally, threatening global health. The deregulation of the Hippo signaling pathway has been discovered in GC and may be related to cancer development, proliferation, metastasis, and drug resistance. Yes-associated protein (YAP), as a downstream effector of the Hippo signaling pathway and a crucial co-transcription factor in the nucleus, is a promising and vital potential drug target for the treatment of GC. A series of drugs or compounds that inhibit YAP has been developed or confirmed. Therefore, this review will focus on summarizing the drugs and small-molecule inhibitors that have been reported to inhibit YAP and discuss the clinical prospects of YAP inhibitors in GC.

Keywords:

• gastric adenocarcinoma
• Yes-associated protein
• Hippo pathway
• small molecule inhibitor
• targeted therapy

Disclosure

The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation of China (Liaoning Province Joint Fund) (No. U1908207).