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      Apoptosis: A Target for Anticancer Therapy

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          Abstract

          Apoptosis, the cell’s natural mechanism for death, is a promising target for anticancer therapy. Both the intrinsic and extrinsic pathways use caspases to carry out apoptosis through the cleavage of hundreds of proteins. In cancer, the apoptotic pathway is typically inhibited through a wide variety of means including overexpression of antiapoptotic proteins and under-expression of proapoptotic proteins. Many of these changes cause intrinsic resistance to the most common anticancer therapy, chemotherapy. Promising new anticancer therapies are plant-derived compounds that exhibit anticancer activity through activating the apoptotic pathway.

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          Most cited references35

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          Cell death: critical control points.

          Programmed cell death is a distinct genetic and biochemical pathway essential to metazoans. An intact death pathway is required for successful embryonic development and the maintenance of normal tissue homeostasis. Apoptosis has proven to be tightly interwoven with other essential cell pathways. The identification of critical control points in the cell death pathway has yielded fundamental insights for basic biology, as well as provided rational targets for new therapeutics.
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            Bcl-2 family proteins and cancer.

            K. Yip, J Reed (2008)
            BCL-2 was the first anti-death gene discovered, a milestone with far reaching implications for tumor biology. Multiple members of the human Bcl-2 family of apoptosis-regulating proteins have been identified, including six antiapoptotic, three structurally similar proapoptotic proteins and several structurally diverse proapoptotic interacting proteins that operate as upstream agonists or antagonists. These proteins, in turn, are regulated through myriad post-translational modifications and interactions with other proteins. Bcl-2-family proteins regulate all major types of cell death, including apoptosis, necrosis and autophagy, thus operating as nodal points at the convergence of multiple pathways with broad relevance to oncology. Experimental therapies targeting Bcl-2-family mRNAs or proteins are currently in clinical testing, raising hopes that a new class of anticancer drugs may soon be available.
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              Mitochondrial apoptosis: killing cancer using the enemy within

              Apoptotic cell death inhibits oncogenesis at multiple stages, ranging from transformation to metastasis. Consequently, in order for cancer to develop and progress, apoptosis must be inhibited. Cell death also plays major roles in cancer treatment, serving as the main effector function of many anti-cancer therapies. In this review, we discuss the role of apoptosis in the development and treatment of cancer. Specifically, we focus upon the mitochondrial pathway of apoptosis—the most commonly deregulated form of cell death in cancer. In this process, mitochondrial outer membrane permeabilisation or MOMP represents the defining event that irrevocably commits a cell to die. We provide an overview of how this pathway is regulated by BCL-2 family proteins and describe ways in which cancer cells can block it. Finally, we discuss exciting new approaches aimed at specifically inducing mitochondrial apoptosis in cancer cells, outlining their potential pitfalls, while highlighting their considerable therapeutic promise.
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                Author and article information

                Journal
                Int J Mol Sci
                Int J Mol Sci
                ijms
                International Journal of Molecular Sciences
                MDPI
                1422-0067
                02 February 2018
                February 2018
                : 19
                : 2
                : 448
                Affiliations
                Department of Biology, Division of Natural and Social Sciences, Carthage College, Kenosha, WI 53140, USA; cpfeffer@ 123456carthage.edu
                Author notes
                [* ]Correspondence: asingh1@ 123456carthage.edu ; Tel.: +1-262-551-6327
                Article
                ijms-19-00448
                10.3390/ijms19020448
                5855670
                29393886
                f4326144-24a4-42ba-9137-a147e5972813
                © 2018 by the authors.

                Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

                History
                : 21 November 2017
                : 14 December 2017
                Categories
                Review

                Molecular biology
                apoptosis,anticancer therapy,curcumin,apoptotic evasion
                Molecular biology
                apoptosis, anticancer therapy, curcumin, apoptotic evasion

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