Anti-Cancer Agents in Medicinal Chemistry (Formerly Current Medicinal Chemistry - Anti-Cancer Agents) - Volume 10, Issue 7, 2010

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), the most common and deadliest brain cancer in adults, is among the least responsive human cancers to therapy. This dismal prognosis has not been significantly improved in the past decades, despite considerable advance made in the biological understanding of GBM. To address this clinical problem, much effort has been invested in identifying and targeting novel molecular targets and pathwa Read More

Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common type of primary malignant brain tumor. Despite advances in surgical resection, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, prognosis remains very poor. Accordingly, recent studies have been focused on the aberrant signal transduction pathways in glioblastoma. Many patient derived primary glioblastomas and cell lines express constitutively activated signal transducers and activator Read More

This article will present the rationale for combining chemical inhibitors of the DNA repair enzyme poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) with conventional cytotoxic agents to improve the treatment of glioblastoma. After a brief review of the current therapeutic options for these aggressive tumours, the possible reasons for their resistance to radiation and chemotherapy will be discussed, highlighting the important role of DN Read More

Patients with malignant gliomas have poor prognoses, and the majority of the patients have local tumor recurrence after various treatments including surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy. Thus it is mandatory to develop better therapies for treatment of these malignant brain tumors. Tetrandrine, a bisbenzylisoquinoline alkaloid, has antitumor effects against some cancers. Tetrandrine affects the cell cycle, prod Read More

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is one of the most common and most aggressive types of primary brain tumors in humans. Even with aggressive surgical resections using state of the art preoperative and intraoperative neuroimaging, along with the most recent techniques in radiotherapy and chemotherapy, the prognosis for GBM patients remains dismal. Survival after diagnosis is about 12-14 months. The tumor cells which alr Read More

Tetracyclines have been long known for their antimicrobial role. They are one of the most widely used antibiotics in clinical practice since last 5 decades. Recently their role as matrix metalloproteinase inhibitor and in apoptosis has widely attracted attention in biological field. Of them, doxycycline is one with long duration of actions and has recently been shown to have various anti-cancer properties, especially cytotoxic Read More

Bisdioxopiperazine (Biz) compounds, including ICRF-154 and razoxane (ICRF-159, Raz), are anticancer agents developed in the UK specifically targeting tumor metastases. Further three bisdioxopiperazine derivatives, bimolane (Bim), probimane (Pro) and MST- 16, have been synthesized at the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences, PR China after 1980. Since metastases, the prevailing deadliest Read More

Mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) is a central controller of cell growth, proliferation, metabolism and angiogenesis. mTOR signaling is often dysregulated in various human diseases and thus attracts great interest in developing drugs that target mTOR. Currently it is known that mTOR functions as two complexes, mTOR complex 1/2 (mTORC1/2). Rapamycin and its analogs (all termed rapalogs) first form a complex with Read More