Importance of the field: Hypoxia, a frequent characteristic in the microenvironment of solid tumors, leads to adrenomedullin (AM) upregulation through the hypoxia inducible factor-1 pathway, explaining its high expression in a variety of malignant tissues. AM is believed to play an important role in tumor progression and angiogenesis in many cancers. Therefore, it could become a new therapeutic target.
Areas covered in this review: We performed a review of the literature based on published data to highlight AM's critical roles in tumor cell growth and cancer invasiveness, and its involvement in tumor angiogenesis through promotion of recruitment of hematopoietic progenitors, vascular morphogenesis, and blood vessel stabilization and maturation. Inhibition of AM has antitumoral effects linked to antiangiogenic effects but in some cases also to direct antiproliferative activity on cancer cells. Several studies demonstrated that systemic inhibition of AM receptors was well tolerated in murine models.
What the reader will gain: The goal of this review is to inform readers about the role of AM in tumor angiogenesis and cancer progression and, therefore, about its possible place as a new therapeutic target.
Take home message: Taken together, these data support targeting the AM pathway as a new potential therapy in cancer, complementary to other existing treatments.