Recent advances in gene sequencing have shown that activated BRAF mutations are present in more than 50% of malignant melanomas and contribute to constitutive signals in the MAPK pathway. Besides the importance of its mutations in cell proliferation, BRAF is associated with lymph node, brain and liver metastasis, along with the loss of PTEN expression and ATG5. Knowledge of this genetic alteration has led to the development of personalized and targeted therapy strategies which block different pathways driving melanoma pathogenesis. Several targeted therapy agents such as vemurafenib, dabrafenib and encorafenib have been approved by the FDA as BRAF inhibitors, as well as other immunotherapies such as anti-CTLA-4 (ipilimumab). However, one of the main challenges is acquired resistance via reactivation of MAPK via CRAF/COT overexpression. Resistance to current BRAF inhibitors is a clinical challenge and one of the strategies to overcome this phenomenon is combination treatment, with the most recently approved combination being BRAF/MEK inhibitors (dabrafenib and trametinib) and BRAF or MEK inhibitors with immunocheckpoint blockers. This review delineates the current role of BRAF in melanoma progression and metastasis. It discusses targeted therapies and resistance mechanisms to BRAF inhibitors, and illustrates strategies to overcome this mechanism with recently approved agents.
Keywords: BRAF; combination treatment; melanoma; metastasis; resistance; targeted therapy.
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