Modulation of epigenetic targets for anticancer therapy: clinicopathological relevance, structural data and drug discovery perspectives.

ABSTRACT: Research on cancer epigenetics has flourished in the last decade. Nevertheless growing evidence point on the importance to understand the mechanisms by which epigenetic changes regulate the genesis and progression of cancer growth. Several epigenetic targets have been discovered and are currently under validation for new anticancer therapies. Drug discovery approaches aiming to target these epigenetic enzymes with small-molecules inhibitors have produced the first pre-clinical and clinical outcomes and many other compounds are now entering the pipeline as new candidate epidrugs. The most studied targets can be ascribed to histone deacetylases and DNA methyltransferases, although several other classes of enzymes are able to operate post-translational modifications to histone tails are also

SUBMITTER: Andreoli F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3529403 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature