Liu XC, Gao JM, Liu S, Liu L, Wang JR, Qu XJ, Cai B, Wang SL. Targeting apoptosis is the major battle field for killing cancers. World J Transl Med 2015; 4(3): 69-77 [DOI: 10.5528/wjtm.v4.i3.69]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Shu-Lin Wang, MD, PhD, Professor, the Marine Biomedical Research Institute of Qingdao, Department of Pharmacology, School of Medicine and Pharmacy, Ocean University of China, 23 Hongkong East Rd. Marine Biomedical Research Building, Qingdao 266071, Shandong Province, China. shulinwang@ouc.edu.cn
Research Domain of This Article
Pharmacology & Pharmacy
Article-Type of This Article
Minireviews
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Transl Med. Dec 12, 2015; 4(3): 69-77 Published online Dec 12, 2015. doi: 10.5528/wjtm.v4.i3.69
Targeting apoptosis is the major battle field for killing cancers
Xiao-Chun Liu, Jiang-Ming Gao, Shan Liu, Li Liu, Jing-Rui Wang, Xian-Jun Qu, Bing Cai, Shu-Lin Wang
Xiao-Chun Liu, Jiang-Ming Gao, Shan Liu, Li Liu, Jing-Rui Wang, Bing Cai, Shu-Lin Wang, the Marine Biomedical Research Institute of Qingdao, Department of Pharmacology, School of Medicine and Pharmacy, Ocean University of China, Qingdao 266071, Shandong Province, China
Xian-Jun Qu, Department of Pharmacology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Capital Medical University, Beijing 100000, China
Author contributions: All the authors equally contributed to this work.
Supported by A grant from National Key Sci-Tech Special Project of Ministry of Science and Technology of China, No. 2008ZX10002-020; and grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, Nos. 30973390 and 81272249 (S. W).
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest in this paper.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Shu-Lin Wang, MD, PhD, Professor, the Marine Biomedical Research Institute of Qingdao, Department of Pharmacology, School of Medicine and Pharmacy, Ocean University of China, 23 Hongkong East Rd. Marine Biomedical Research Building, Qingdao 266071, Shandong Province, China. shulinwang@ouc.edu.cn
Telephone: +86-532-80932613
Received: January 28, 2015 Peer-review started: January 28, 2015 First decision: April 10, 2015 Revised: April 27, 2015 Accepted: August 30, 2015 Article in press: August 31, 2015 Published online: December 12, 2015 Processing time: 321 Days and 19.4 Hours
Core Tip
Core tip: Chemotherapy and radiotherapy are important approaches for cancer therapy and have prolonged the lifespan and reduced the mortality of cancer patients. But chemotherapy and radiotherapy induce apoptosis in both cancer and normal cells, therefore possessing severe toxic side effects. It appears quite important to develop the biological mechanism-based drugs that that can selectively kill tumor cells but not normal cells. Molecular targets in the apoptotic signaling pathways such as p53, TRAIL, and Bcl-2 have been identified, and molecularly targeting drugs for a variety of tumors based on these pathways are currently under development. Dissecting the genetic alterations in a particular tumor type and designing the rational drug combinations targeting different pathways can help achieve synergy in eradicating cancer cells and reversing drug resistance, and this holds great promise for the personalized treatment of cancer patients.
