Inducing death in tumor cells: roles of the inhibitor of apoptosis proteins.

ABSTRACT: The heterogeneous group of diseases collectively termed cancer results not just from aberrant cellular proliferation but also from a lack of accompanying homeostatic cell death. Indeed, cancer cells regularly acquire resistance to programmed cell death, or apoptosis, which not only supports cancer progression but also leads to resistance to therapeutic agents. Thus, various approaches have been undertaken in order to induce apoptosis in tumor cells for therapeutic purposes. Here, we will focus our discussion on agents that directly affect the apoptotic machinery itself rather than on drugs that induce apoptosis in tumor cells indirectly, such as by DNA damage or kinase dependency inhibition. As the roles of the Bcl-2 family have been extensively studied and reviewed recently, we will focus

SUBMITTER: Finlay D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5414821 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature