Agents Targeting Apoptosis Take Center Stage in the Battle against Cancer

Abstract

Effective therapy of cancer requires elimination of
tumor cells through programmed cell death or
apoptosis, which is a highly regulated process that
avoids the unwanted inflammatory response when cells
die. Morphologically, the manifestation of apoptosis is
similar across various cell types and species, and is
observed as a series of cellular changes that begin with
chromatin condensation, followed by nuclear
fragmentation, cell shrinkage, blebbing and finally
phagocytosis1,2. When tumor cells are exposed to
therapeutic agents, the damage to cellular organelles or
macromolecules creates substantial intracellular
stress, which triggers the onset of the apoptotic cell
death program