This article is part of the supplement: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Malignancies in AIDS and Other Acquired Immunodeficiencies (ICMAOI): Basic, Epidemiologic, and Clinical Research .

Oral presentation

Targeting the PI3K/AKT/MTOR pathway in KSHV-associated cancers

A Bhatt, P Bhende and B Damania

Lineberger Cancer Center and Department of Microbiology & Immunology, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA

corresponding author email

from 11th International Conference on Malignancies in AIDS and Other Acquired Immunodeficiencies (ICMAOI): Basic, Epidemiologic, and Clinical Research
Bethesda, MD, USA. 6–7 October 2008

Infectious Agents and Cancer 2009, 4(Suppl 2):O7doi:10.1186/1750-9378-4-S2-O7

Published:	17 June 2009

First paragraph (this article has no abstract)

Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) is linked to three different human cancers: Kaposi's sarcoma (KS), primary effusion lymphoma (PEL) and multicentric Castleman's disease (MCD). We have previously reported that the PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathway is critical for the survival of KSHV-infected endothelial cells and B cells, and have demonstrated that Rapamycin/Sirolimus, an inhibitor of mTOR, can induce PEL cell death in vitro and in vivo (Sin et al., Blood. 2007. 109(5):2165–73). We have now extended these findings and demonstrate that therapeutic targeting of other members of the PI3K/Akt/mTOR signal transduction pathway can also induce cell death in PEL in vitro and inhibit tumor growth in murine xenograft models. Importantly, some of these novel drug candidates have passed clinical trials for other indications and can therefore be tested for efficacy against KS and AIDS-associated lymphomas.