Current Medicinal Chemistry - Volume 22, Issue 35, 2015

The hedgehog (Hh) pathway is a developmental signaling pathway that is essential to the proper embryonic development of many vertebrate systems. Dysregulation of Hh signaling has been implicated as a causative factor in the development and progression of several forms of human cancer. As such, the development of small molecule inhibitors of Hh signaling as potential anti-cancer chemotherapeutics has been a m Read More

Natural products drug discovery has allowed the identification of many biologically active compounds from plants, microbial species, and marine organisms. A significant number of these compounds are currently used as drugs in therapeutic protocols, while other naturally occurring chemical entities gave suggestions for designing nonnatural-productderived drugs or have been modified in their structure to have semi-synthetic Read More

Cell-to-cell signaling molecules such as the Wnt proteins that directly influence the expression of cell-type specific transcriptional programs are essential for tissue generation in metazoans. The mechanisms supporting cellular responses to these molecules represent potential points of intervention for directing cell fate outcomes in therapeutic contexts. Small molecules that modulate Wnt-mediated cellular responses ha Read More

The Hippo signaling pathway is critical in regulating tissue homeostasis, organ size, and tumorigenesis. YAP and TAZ, two major effectors of the Hippo pathway, function as transcriptional co-activators and promote target gene expression mainly through interaction with TEAD family transcription factors. As oncoproteins, YAP and TAZ are frequently activated or highly expressed in various cancer specimens. Moreover Read More

A key barrier to the development of gene therapy remains the lack of safe, efficient and easily controllable vehicles for gene delivery. The fundamental problems associated with the viral vehicles, e.g. lack of specificity and immunogenic potential, have driven the development of non-viral systems of gene delivery. In the last decade, studies on p53 gene replacement therapy have dominated the literature. Although clin Read More