Triple-negative Breast Cancer (TNBC) is the most aggressive and prevailing breast cancer
subtype. The chemotherapeutics used in the treatment of TNBC suffer from chemoresistance,
dose-limiting toxicities and off-target side effects. As a result, conventional chemotherapeutics are
unable to prevent tumor growth, metastasis and result in failure of therapy. Various new targets such
as BCSCs surface markers (CD44, CD133, ALDH1), signaling pathways (IL-6/JAK/STAT3, notch),
pro and anti-apoptotic proteins (Bcl-2, Bcl-xL, DR4, DR5), hypoxic factors (HIF-1α, HIF-2α) and
drug efflux transporters (ABCC1, ABCG2 and ABCB1) have been exploited to treat TNBC. Further,
to improve the efficacy and safety of conventional chemotherapeutics, researchers have tried to deliver
anticancer agents specifically to the TNBCs using nanocarrier based drug delivery. In this review,
an effort has been made to highlight the various factors responsible for the chemoresistance in
TNBC, novel molecular targets of TNBC and nano-delivery systems employed to achieve sitespecific
drug delivery to improve efficacy and reduce off-target side effects.
The Role of Germline BRCA1 Founder Mutations and Somatic TP53 Mutations in the Triple-Negative Breast Cancer Subtype. Doctoral Thesis
