Mitochondrial targeted β-lapachone induces mitochondrial dysfunction and catastrophic vacuolization in cancer cells.

ABSTRACT: Mitochondria play important roles in tumor cell physiology and survival by providing energy and metabolites for proliferation and metastasis. As part of their oncogenic status, cancer cells frequently produce increased levels of mitochondrial-generated reactive oxygen species (ROS). However, extensive stimulation of ROS generation in mitochondria has been shown to be able to induce cancer cell death, and is one of the major mechanisms of action of many anticancer agents. We hypothesized that enhancing mitochondrial ROS generation through direct targeting of a ROS generator into mitochondria will exhibit tumor cell selectivity, as well as high efficacy in inducing cancer cell death. We thus synthesized a mitochondrial targeted version of β-lapachone (XJB-Lapachone) based on our XJB mitochon

SUBMITTER: Ma J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4607627 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature