The Role of 4-Thiazolidinone Scaffold in Targeting Variable Biomarkers and Pathways Involving Cancer

Background: Cancer can be considered as a genetic as well as a metabolic disorder. The current cancer treatment scenario looks like aggravating tumor cell metabolism, causing the disease to progress even with greater intensity. The cancer therapy is restricted to the limitations of poor patient compliance due to toxicities to normal tissues and multi-drug resistance development. There is an emerging need for cancer therapy to be more focused towards better understanding of genetic, epigenetic and transcriptional changes resulting in cancer progression and their relationship with treatment sensitivity. Objective: The 4-thiazolidinone nucleus possesses marked anticancer potential towards different biotargets, thus targeting different cancer types like breast, prostate, lung, colorectal and colon cancers, renal cell adenocarcinomas and gliomas. Therefore, conjugating the 4-thiazolidinone scaffold with other promising moieties or directing the therapy towards targeted drug delivery systems like the use of nanocarrier systems, can provide the gateway for optimizing the anticancer efficiency and minimizing the adverse effects and drug resistance development, thus providing stimulus for personalized pharmacotherapy. Methods: An exhaustive literature survey has been done to give an insight into the anticancer potential of the 4- thiazolidinone nucleus either alone or in conjugation with other active moieties, with the mechanisms involved in preventing proliferation and metastasis of cancer covering a vast range of publications of repute. Conclusion: This review aims to summarise the work reported on anticancer activity of 4-thiazolidinone derivatives covering various cancer biomarkers and pathways involved, citing the data from the year 2005 till now, which may be beneficial to the researchers for future development of more efficient 4-thiazolidinone derivatives.