Farnesyltransferase Inhibitor in Cancer Treatment

Abstract

Cancer is a class of diseases characterized by uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells anywhere in the body and the ability of these cells to invade other locations in the body, either by direct growth into adjacent tissue or by migration of cells to distant sites. This unregulated growth is caused by damage to DNA, resulting in mutations to genes that encode proteins controlling cell division. To prevent this unregulated growth various anticancer drug (Chen et al., 2011; Kim & Dass 2011) have been developed. But these drugs have severe toxicity and are not well tolerated in the patient. Therefore, the major goal in anticancer drug discovery process is to discover and develop innovative therapies that exhibit a real improvement in effectiveness and/or tolerability. In cancer therapy, continuous effort has been made to explore the new targets. Cancer research is largely focused on prospective targets identified by basic science such as the oncogenic signal transduction pathway, oncogenes, tumor suppressor genes, and genes involved in the regulation of the cell cycle and apoptosis or programmed cell death (Gridelli et al., 2003; Hochhaus et al., 2004; Lau et al., 2011; Minna et al., 2004). Proteins mediating their effects are obvious targets for cancer therapy because, by definition, these proteins are involved in the primary transformation of normal cells. Proteins that transmit abnormal growth signals offer enticing points of intervention for the treatment of cancer. One potential target is the Ras family of proteins, which are mutationally activated in a wide range of human tumor types and are important contributors to the neoplastic phenotype (Barbacid et al., 1987; Biagi et al., 2010; Bollag et al., 1991; Bos et al., 1989).