Many traditional anticancer agents act by damaging cellular DNA, but the lack of selectivity offered by this approach commonly leads to undesirable side effects [1]. In addition, the genetic instability of cancer cells facilitates the development of resistance to particular drug pathways [2]. There is thus a drive to discover systems that exhibit different – perhaps more subtle – modes of actio...

The observation that the enzyme telomerase is up-regulated in 80-90% of cancer cells isolated from primary human tumors but is absent in neighboring cells of healthy tissue has resulted in significant efforts to validate telomerase as an anticancer drug target and to develop effective approaches toward its inhibition. In addition to inhibitors that target the enzymatic function of telomerase, e...

Malignant cells express antigens that can be harnessed to elicit anticancer immune responses. One approach to achieve such goal consists in the administration of tumor-associated antigens (TAAs) or peptides thereof as recombinant proteins in the presence of adequate adjuvants. Throughout the past decade, peptide vaccines have been shown to mediate antineoplastic effects in various murine tumor ...

Efficient delivery to the cell nucleus remains a significant challenge for many biomolecules, including anticancer drugs, proteins and DNAs. Despite numerous attempts to improve nuclear import including the use of nuclear localization signal (NLS) peptides and nanoparticle carriers, they are limited by the nanoparticle size, conjugation method, dependence on the functional nuclear import and in...

Cyclotides comprise a family of circular mini-peptides that have been isolated from various plants and have a wide range of bioactivities. Previous studies have demonstrated that cyclotides have antitumor effects and cause cell death by membrane permeabilization. The present study aimed to evaluate the cytotoxicity and chemosensitizing activities of cyclotides from Clitoria ternatea in paclitax...

Proteins of the BCL-2 family control the mitochondrial pathway of apoptosis. Targeting these proteins proves to be an attractive strategy for anticancer therapy. The biological context is based on the fact that BH3-only members of the family are specific antagonists of prosurvival members. This prompted the identification of "BH3 mimetic" compounds. These small peptides or organic molecules ind...

BACKGROUND TNFα cytokine family in the body plays divers' roles in the cellular events such as cell proliferation, differentiation, necrosis, septic shock and apoptosis. In response to TNF therapy, several cell signaling pathways activated in cells which in different manners can lead to apoptosis or necrosis. However induction of apoptosis is depended on one of its important members, TRAIL and ...

Graphene quantum dots (GQDs) were rationally fabricated as a traceable drug delivery system for the targeted, pH-sensitive delivery of a chemotherapeutic drug into cancer cells. The GQDs served as fluorescent carriers for a well-known anticancer drug, doxorubicin (Dox). The whole system has the capacity for simultaneous tracking of the carrier and of drug release. Dox release is triggered upon ...

A large 40-residue precursor peptide (propeptide 5) was synthesized by linking together four designed anticancer peptide analogs to the neuropeptides: vasoactive intestinal peptide, somatostatin, bombesin and substance P, using enzyme cleavable lysyl-lysine linkers. On incubation with the enzyme trypsin, propeptide 5 was cleaved in a sequence-specific manner at the lysyl-lysine residues in the ...

Antimicrobial peptides are the backbone of first-line defense against various microorganisms in the animal kingdom. Thus, not surprisingly, they are gaining attention in the science and medical fields as a rich repository of new pro-drugs. Below, we focus our attention on the Brevinin family of anuran peptides. While most of them show strong antibacterial activities, some, e.g. Brevinin-2R, app...