Apoptosis and cancer

Abstract

Cancer is a worldwide endemic and continues to be one of the most difficult diseases to treat and manage. It generally exhibits considerable genetic complexity and aberrant cell death and survival signaling pathways. Resistance to cell death induction has long been recognized as a hallmark of cancer. Thus, understanding of the underlying molecular events regulating different cell death mechanisms such as apoptosis has provided new possibilities for targeted interference of these pathways. This chapter highlights the significant signaling pathways of apoptosis and its relevant therapeutic targets and summarizes the current state of development of specific modulators of cell death and the overall outcome of this group of novel therapeutics in various phases of clinical trials.