Anti-Cancer Agents in Medicinal Chemistry (Formerly Current Medicinal Chemistry - Anti-Cancer Agents) - Volume 14, Issue 1, 2014

Focal Adhesion Kinase (FAK) plays an important role in cancer cell survival. Previous microarray gene profiling study detected inverse regulation between expression of thioredoxin-interacting protein (TXNIP) and FAK, where down-regulation of FAK by siRNA in MCF-7 cells caused up-regulation of TXNIP mRNA level, and in contrast up-regulation of doxycyclin- induced FAK caused repression of TXNIP. In the present report, we sho Read More

Focal adhesion is known to be highly expressed and activated in glioma cells. Recently, we demonstrated that FAK autophosphorylation inhibitor, Y15 significantly decreased tumor growth of DBTRG and U87 cells, especially in combination with temozolomide. In the present report, we performed gene expression analysis in these cells to reveal genes affected by Y15, temozolomide and combination of Y15 and temozolo Read More

Focal Adhesion Kinase is a 125 kDa non-receptor kinase and overexpressed in many types of tumors. Recently, short noncoding RNAs, called microRNAs have been discovered as regulators of gene expression mainly through binding to the untranslated region (UTR) of mRNA. In this report we show that MiR-138 and MiR-135 down-regulated FAK expression in cancer cells. MiR-138 and MiR-135 inhibited FAK protein expressio Read More

Cordycepin, also known as 3-deoxyadenosine, is an analogue of adenosine extracted from the traditional Chinese medicine “Dong Chong Xia Cao”. Cordycepin is an active small molecular weight compound and is implicated in modulating multiple physiological functions including immune activation, anti-aging and anti-tumor effects. Several studies have indicated that cordycepin suppresses tumor progression. However, th Read More

S100 inflammatory proteins have been previously shown to modulate breast cancer processes. More specifically, genome-wide transcriptome studies associate S100A8 and S100A9 members to breast cancer progression and malignancy. Findings have shown that S100A8 and S100A9 can signal and regulate cancer cell behavior through both extracellular and intracellular-initiated cascades. However, functional studies expl Read More

Neuroblastoma tumorigenesis and malignant transformation is driven by overexpression and dominance of cell survival pathways and a lack of normal cellular senescence or apoptosis. Therefore, manipulation of cell survival pathways may decrease the malignant potential of these tumors and provide avenues for the development of novel therapeutics. This review focuses on the individual protein tyrosine kinase, focal adhe Read More

Estrogens are known to be important in breast cancer growth in both pre- and post-menopausal women. Although circulating estrogen concentrations are very low after menopause, peripheral tissues generate sufficient concentrations to stimulate tumor growth. As aromatase is the rate-limiting enzyme in estrogen biosynthesis, inhibitors of this enzyme represent effective targeted therapy for breast cancer. Three co Read More

Most prostate and breast cancers are hormone dependent. The inhibition of steroid 17α-hydroxylase/17,20- lyase (CYP17), which is a crucial enzyme for steroid hormone biosynthesis, is widely used to treat androgen-dependent prostate cancer (PC). CYP17 has dual enzymatic activity: 17alpha-hydroxylase activity (utilizing delta4- C21 steroids as substrates) and the 17,20-lyase activity (using delta5- C21 steroids as subs Read More

Skin is the largest body organ forming a metabolically active barrier between external and internal environments. The metabolic barrier is composed of cytochromes P450 (CYPs) that regulate its homeostasis through activation or inactivation of biologically relevant molecules. In this review we focus our attention on local steroidogenic and secosteroidogenic systems in relation to skin cancer, e.g., prevention, attenuati Read More

Increasing evidence has accumulated to suggest that vitamin D may reduce the risk of cancer through its biologically active metabolite, 1α,25(OH)2D3, which inhibits proliferation and angiogenesis, induces differentiation and apoptosis, and regulates many other cellular functions. Thus, it is plausible to assume that rapid clearance of 1α,25(OH)2D3 by highly expressed CYP24A1 could interrupt the normal physiology Read More

The expression of CYP27B1 or vitamin D 1α-hydroxylase (1α-OHase) and CYP24A1 in specific tissues may act as the central part between 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] serum levels and the anticancer effects of1α,25-dihydroxyvitamin D [1α,25(OH)2D3],alternative splicing of these enzymes may affect their biological functions. Here, we describe the expression of CYP24A1 and its splicing variants detected in breast c Read More

Cancer cell heterogeneity is a common feature - both between patients diagnosed with the same cancer and within an individual patient’s tumor - and leads to widely different response rates to cancer therapies and the potential for the emergence of drug resistance. Diverse therapeutic approaches have been developed to combat the complexity of cancer, including individual treatment modalities designed to target tum Read More

Heterocyclic compounds, analogs and derivatives have attracted attention due to their diverse biological and pharmacological properties. Benzoheterocycles such as benzothiazoles, benzimidazoles and benzoxazoles are constituents of many bioactive heterocyclic compounds, having wider range of applications. They have been extensively studied for their biological activities, and can serve as unique and versatile scaff Read More

In the search for new metal-based anticancer agents as effective candidates for cisplatin, a lot of strategies such as synthesis of cisplatin analogs, trans-platinum compounds and non-platinum metal complexes have been put forward in the last forty years. The concept of multinuclearity for improving the chemotherapeutic activity has been proven in multinuclear platinum complexes such as BBR3464, recently, the effective Read More

Plumbagin [5-hydroxy- 2-methyl-1, 4-naphthaquinone] is a well-known plant derived anticancer lead compound. Several efforts have been made to synthesize its analogs and derivatives in order to increase its anticancer potential. In the present study, plumbagin and its five derivatives have been evaluated for their antiproliferative potential in one normal and four human cancer cell lines. Treatment with derivatives resulted i Read More