Targeting Inhibitor of Apoptosis Proteins to Overcome Chemotherapy Resistance—A Marriage between Targeted Therapy and Cytotoxic Chemotherapy

Abstract

Precision oncology is the ultimate goal of cancer treatment, i.e., to treat cancer and only cancer, leaving all the remaining cells and tissues as intact as possible. Classical chemotherapy and radiotherapy, however, are still effective in many patients with cancer by effectively inducing apoptosis of cancer cells. Cancer cells might resist apoptosis via the anti-apoptotic effects of the inhibitor of apoptosis proteins. Recently, the inhibitors of those proteins have been developed with the goal of enhancing the cytotoxic effects of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, and one of them, xevinapant, has already demonstrated effectiveness in a phase II clinical trial. This class of drugs represents an example of synergism between classical cytotoxic chemo- and radiotherapy and new targeted therapy.

Magnetic propelled hydrogel microrobots for actively enhancing the efficiency of lycorine hydrochloride to suppress colorectal cancer

“…Cancer cells have the ability to escape apoptosis, so aimed at inducing cancer apoptosis is a very important direction for treating cancers ( Elbanna et al, 2021 ). Cytotoxic chemotherapy and radiotherapy attempt to trigger apoptosis through endogenous pathways by acting on cell division and/or directly damaging DNA, and are currently the main methods for treating cancer through the induction of apoptosis mechanisms ( Wanner et al, 2020 ; Barroso et al, 2023 ). In our experiments, we observed that LH has the ability to induce apoptosis in CRC cells, and the magnetic propelled hydrogel microrobots significantly enhance this ability ( Figure 6 ).…”