Apoptosis Pathways and Neuroblastoma Therapy

Evasion of apoptosis, the cell's intrinsic death program, is a hallmark of human cancers including neuroblastoma. Also, failure to undergo apoptosis may cause treatment resistance, since the cytotoxic activity of anticancer therapies commonly used in the clinic, e.g. chemotherapy, γ-irradiation or immunotherapy, is predominantly mediated by triggering apoptosis in tumor cells. Therefore, a better understanding of the signaling pathways and molecules that govern apoptosis in neuroblastoma cells is expected to open new avenues for the design of molecular targeted therapies for neuroblastoma.