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REVIEW article

Front. Oncol.
Sec. Hematologic Malignancies
Volume 14 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fonc.2024.1446723

Focal Adhesion Kinase (FAK) as a new player for the biology of onco-hematological diseases: the starting evidence

Provisionally accepted
Guido Capasso Guido Capasso 1Nayla Mouawad Nayla Mouawad 1Maria Castronuovo Maria Castronuovo 1Edoardo Ruggeri Edoardo Ruggeri 1ANDREA VISENTIN ANDREA VISENTIN 1*Livio Trentin Livio Trentin 1Federica Frezzato Federica Frezzato 2*
  • 1 Department of Medicine, School of Medicine and Surgery, University of Padua, Padua, Italy
  • 2 Hematology Unit, Department of Medicine (DIMED), University of Padua, Padua, Italy

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Focal Adhesion Kinase (FAK) is a non-receptor tyrosine kinase mainly found in the focal adhesion regions of the plasma membrane and it has a crucial role in migration and re-modelling of cellular morphology. FAK is also linked to several aspects of cancer biology, from cytokines production to angiogenesis, drug resistance, invasion and metastasis, as well as epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition. The gene locus of FAK results frequently amplified in several human tumors, thus causing a FAK overexpression in several cancers. Furthermore, FAK is able to influence extracellular matrix production and exosomes secretion by cancer-associated fibroblasts, thus having an important role in tumor microenvironment regulation. While on the one hand the role of FAK in solid tumors is well known, on the other hand its importance in onco-hematological diseases remains poorly explored. This review collects studies related to FAK significance in onco-hematological diseases and their microenvironments. Overall, FAK importance in blood tumors is increasingly evident, but further research is required to confirm FAK as a new therapeutic target in the hematological contexts.

    Keywords: FAK, microenvironment, tumor, Blood, Hematological diseases

    Received: 11 Jun 2024; Accepted: 31 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Capasso, Mouawad, Castronuovo, Ruggeri, VISENTIN, Trentin and Frezzato. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    ANDREA VISENTIN, Department of Medicine, School of Medicine and Surgery, University of Padua, Padua, Italy
    Federica Frezzato, Hematology Unit, Department of Medicine (DIMED), University of Padua, Padua, Italy

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.