ArticleCancer letters2022
The antidepressant imipramine inhibits breast cancer growth by targeting estrogen receptor signaling and DNA repair events.
Article in Cancer letters, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
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Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed, 33 citations in OpenAlex.
- Understanding nerve-tumor interactions: From basic biology to therapeutic innovation.Genes & diseases · 2026Review
- Multi-omics and artificial intelligence for precision drug discovery and potential clinical applications.Signal transduction and targeted therapy · 2026Review
- Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor and serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor use and sexual dysfunction: a pharmacovigilance analysis.Sexual medicine · 2026Article
- Repurposing tricyclic drugs as cancer therapeutics: comparative analysis of antitumorigenic effects of chlorpromazine, amitriptyline and imipramine.Frontiers in oncology · 2026Article
- Old Drugs, New Battles: Unleashing Repurposed Drug Classes in Triple-Negative Breast Cancer Treatment.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
- Imipramine Inhibits Osteosarcoma Invasion via Src Inactivation and Caspase-Dependent Apoptosis.Journal of cellular and molecular medicine · 2025Article
- Drug repurposing in oncology: a path beyond the bottleneck.Medical oncology (Northwood, London, England) · 2025Review
- Synthesis and biological evaluation of thiourea-tethered benzodiazepinones as anti-proliferative agents targeting JAK-3 kinase.Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's archives of pharmacology · 2025Article
- Microvesicle inhibition enhances the therapeutic effects of ATRA in acute promyelocytic leukemia cells via changes in miRNAs: the promising antileukemic potential of imipramine.Clinical and experimental medicine · 2025Article
- Sorption and release of small molecules in PDMS and COC for Organs on chip.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Repurposing serotonergic drugs for gastric cancer: induction of apoptosis in vitro.Molecular biology reports · 2025Article
- Expression of Fascin and DNA Topoisomerase 2-Alpha in Breast Carcinoma: Correlation with Histological Subtypes and Other Prognostic Markers.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Article
- Chronic Psychological Stress in Oncogenesis: Multisystem Crosstalk and Multimodal Interventions.Research (Washington, D.C.) · 2025Review
- Imipramine-induced immunomodulation and intracellular growth inhibition duringFrontiers in veterinary science · 2025Article
- Unlocking hidden potential: advancements, approaches, and obstacles in repurposing drugs for cancer therapy.British journal of cancer · 2024Review
- Review
- Imipramine-induced Apoptosis and Metastasis Inhibition in Human Bladder Cancer T24 Cells Through EGFR/ERK/NF-κB Pathway Suppression.In vivo (Athens, Greece)Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
13 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Aberrant activities of various cell cycle and DNA repair proteins promote cancer growth and progression and render them resistant to therapies. Here, we demonstrate that the anti-depressant imipramine blocks growth of triple-negative (TNBC) and estrogen receptor-positive (ER+) breast cancers by inducing cell cycle arrest and by blocking heightened homologous recombination (HR) and non-homologous end joining-mediated (NHEJ) DNA repair activities. Our results reveal that imipramine inhibits the expression of several cell cycle- and DNA repair-associated proteins including E2F1, CDK1, Cyclin D1, and RAD51. In addition, we show that imipramine inhibits the growth of ER + breast cancers by inhibiting the estrogen receptor- α (ER-α) signaling. Our studies in preclinical mouse models and ex vivo explants from breast cancer patients show that imipramine sensitizes TNBC to the PARP inhibitor olaparib and endocrine resistant ER + breast cancer to anti-estrogens. Our studies suggest that repurposing imipramine could enhance routine care for breast cancer patients. Based on these results, we designed an ongoing clinical trial, where we are testing the efficacy of imipramine for treating patients with triple-negative and estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer. Since aberrant DNA repair activity is used by many cancers to survive and become resistant to therapy, imipramine could be used alone and/or with currently used drugs for treating many aggressive cancers.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.