Hitting the brakes: targeting microtubule motors in cancer.

摘要: Despite the growing number of therapies that target cancer-specific pathways, cytotoxic treatments remain important clinical tools. The rationale for targeting cell proliferation by chemotherapeutic agents stems from assumption tumours harbour a greater fraction actively dividing cells than normal tissues. One such group drugs impair microtubule polymers, which are cytoskeletal components essential many processes including mitosis. However, in addition to their antimitotic action, these cause debilitating and dose-limiting neurotoxicity because functions microtubules neurons. To overcome this limitation, against mitosis-specific targets have been developed over past decade, albeit with variable success. Here we review key lessons learnt focus on inhibitors motor proteins. Furthermore, based cancer genome data, describe proteins tumour type-specific alterations, warrant further investigation quest increased specificity.