A Review of the Role of ERp57 in Cancerous and Non-Cancerous Cell Physiology and its Potential as a Therapeutic Target

The protein ERp57 is a stress-responsive protein, mainly exists in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), and a small amount in the cell membrane, cytoplasm, nucleus and mitochondria, which is involved in the signal transduction from the cell surface, the regulation process that occurs in the nucleus, and the formation of polymer protein complexes involved in DNA repair. Various degrees of ERp57 dysregulation has been observed in many types of non-communicable diseases especially in cancers. Previous studies showed that the expression of ERp57 could play a key role in occurrence and development of cancers such as breast cancer, gastric cancer, ovarian cancer, etc.; in addition, it has been suggested to play a pivotal role in disease progression of non-cancerous diseases such as neurodegeneration, liver disease, kidney disease, intestinal irritability syndrome and airway hypersensitivity. Thus, abnormal expression of ERp57 could be used as promising biomarker for cancer diagnosis and prognosis based on the previous studies. In this regard, current study was aimed to review the literature, which have been elucidate the role of ERp57 protein expression in both non-cancer and cancer disease. Overall, most studies have shown that inhibiting/knocking out of ERp57 could inhibit the cell proliferation and also induce apoptosis in both human cancerous and non-cancerous cells. Also, it has been suggested that the overexpression of ERp57 could intensify the cancer development. Therefore, it could be hypothesized that targeting of ERp57 might be a potential treatment in cancerous and non-cancerous diseases.