Talin: A Potential Drug Target for Cancer Therapy

Talin is an intracellular cytoskeletal protein and one of the major components of the focal adhesion complex. It mainly acts as an interlink between transmembrane integrin receptors and cytosolic F-actin. Apart from integrins and actin, it also interacts with various other proteins in the adhesion complex to regulate their functional dynamics. Talin undergoes a variety of post-translational modifications and they are implicated in the control of cell motility. There are two talin isoforms (talin1 and talin2) in mammals and they are encoded by TLN1 and TLN2 genes, respectively. Recent studies showed that both the isoforms have some mechanistic dissimilarities in terms of their interaction with membrane-bound integrins. Among the two isoforms, talin1 was well studied, and most of the information available till now comes from talin1. The present review is aimed to provide an updated overview on the cellular significance of talin in normal and cancerous cells.