Galectin-3

Galectin-3 is a β-galactoside binding protein that is widely involved in cell growth, cell apoptosis, embryonic development, immune regulation, and other processes. In clinical practice, the positivity rate of Galectin-3 in thyroid carcinoma is significantly higher than that in benign lesion and normal tissue, so it becomes one of the most valuable identification indicators, and it is highly expressed in differentiated thyroid carcinoma but lowly expressed in undifferentiated thyroid carcinoma and medullary thyroid carcinoma. Moreover, Galectin-3 is closely related to the occurrence and development of lung cancer, gastric cancer, colorectal cancer, pancreatic cancer, breast cancer, ovarian cancer and other tumors. For example, Galectin-3 can mediate the exhaustion of cytotoxic T cells, the production of M2 tumor associated macrophages and the activity inhibition of natural killer cells in lung cancer, while in breast cancer, it can stimulate cell proliferation by up-regulating cyclin, and promote angiogenesis by binding integrin αvβ3 and activating FAK. However, some scholars pointed out that its expression level is negatively correlated with the progression of cervical cancer, and the specific mechanism is still unclear.