Figure 5.

Schematic cartoon of KSG-002 effects on TNBC microenvironment. KSG-002 inhibits breast tumor growth and metastasis by blocking NF-κB-dependent TNFα production in macrophages. KSG-002 in our study inhibited TNFα production from macrophages through blocking NF-κB pathway, resulting in the suppression of tumor cell growth and metastasis. As TNFα is abundant in tumor microenvironment and produced from different types of cells, it still remains to elucidate whether KSG-002 targets other cell types producing TNFα. Interestingly, KSG-002 with TNFα caused breast cancer cell death, indicating that KSG-002 may sensitize cells to TNFα. Thus, KSG-002 seems to have pleiotropic roles in tumor microenvironment, while our present data demonstrate its role against macrophagic TNFα production in metastatic breast cancer microenvironment.