Chemotherapy: Open Access
Open Access

Abstract

Potential Hsp90 Inhibitors: A Novel Target for Cancer Therapy

Revathi B, Prashanth K

The uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells in the body is Cancer. With the rapid progression of molecular biology and genetics, emerging targets and therapeutics provides new opportunities for the prevention and treatment of several major disease systems. During drug discovery research many targets against cancer were also discovered. Hsp90 (heat shock protein 90) is a chaperone protein that assists other proteins to fold properly, stabilizes proteins against heat stress, and aids in protein degradation. It also stabilizes a number of proteins required for tumor growth, which is why Hsp90 inhibitors are investigated as anti-cancer drugs. The function of Hsp90 includes assisting in protein folding, cell signaling, and tumor repression. Tumour-based Hsp90 has a significantly higher sensitivity than that in normal cells to inhibitors. Hsp90 activity inhibition in tumours leads to a suppression of cellular signaling in many different oncogenic pathways. Several inhibitors of Hsp90 are currently undergoing clinical evaluation and new agents with different mechanisms of action are continually being identified.