APOPTOSIS SIGNALING; A DRUG DESIGN IN CANCER THERAPY: A REVIEW

Apoptosis plays an important role in development, growth, differentiation, altered gravity conditions, tissue homeostasis, immune defense, and cancer to control cell number in tissues and to eliminate individual cells that threaten the animal’s survival. The purposes of this review are to describe the signaling pathways and the cellular changes that occur with apoptosis. Currently, two pathways for activating apoptosis have been studied in detail. One starts with ligation of a death ligand to its transmembrane death receptor, followed by recruitment and activation of caspases in the death-inducing signalling complex. The second pathway involves the participation of mitochondria, which release caspase-activating proteins into the cytosol, thereby forming the apoptosome where caspases will bind and become activated. The novel agents include those targeting for the design of more effective and selective therapeutic strategies. This review providing an overview of the recent understanding of apoptotic signaling pathways, the main mechanisms by which cancer cells resist apoptotic insults, and discuss some recent attempts to target for restoring efficient cell death signaling in cancer cells to develop a potential anticancer drug.