CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Cancer is a leading cause of death in both developed and developing countries.Although advances in cancer research lead to improved anti-neoplastic therapies,they continue to have unfavorable outcomes, including poor response and severetoxicity. Thus, the challenge for the new therapeutic approaches is to increase antitumorefficacy by targeting different molecules encompassed in the tumor and itsmicroenvironment, as well as their specific interactions. The histamine H4 receptor(H4R) is the last discovered histamine receptor subtype and it modulates importantimmune functions in innate and in adaptive immune responses. Several ligands havebeen developed and some of them are being used in clinical trials for immune disorderswith promising results. When searched in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database,human H4R gene was found to be expressed in bladder cancer, kidney cancer, breastcancer, gastrointestinal cancers, lung cancer, endometrial cancer, and skin cancer. In thepresent work, we aimed to briefly summarize current knowledge in H4R?s pharmacologyand in the clinical use of H4R ligands before focusing on recent data reporting theexpression of H4R and its pathophysiological role in cancer, representing a potentialmolecular target for cancer therapeutics. H4R gene and protein expression in differenttypes of cancers compared with normal tissue as well as its relationship with patientprognosis in terms of survival will be described.