Therapeutic Opportunities of Wnt Signaling for Bone Metastasis

Objectives: To explore the therapeutic opportunities of Wnt signaling for bone metastasis.
Methods: We reviewed the involvement of Wnt signaling components in specific bone metastasis stage, introduced the promising Wnt modulators potential for bone metastasis therapeutics, and summarized the drug discovery strategies and preclinical models that useful for investigating Wnt signaling in skeletal metastasis.
Results: Targeting Wnt pathway is attractive for bone metastasis therapeutic intervention. Since overactivation of Wnt signaling is a general feature of bone-metastatic cancer cells, while interactions between cancer cells and local bone microenvironment result in either osteogenic or osteolytic bone lesions, individualized Wnt-activated or -inhibited strategies might be adopted to target Wnt signaling based on the specific bone lesion types.
Conclusions: Wnt signaling pathway plays important regulatory roles in multiple bone metastasis stages, and Wnt modulators are potential for bone metastasis prevention and therapeutics. Powerful drug discovery strategies and preclinical models might be helpful for Wnt-targeted bone metastasis therapeutics.