Jimeno Antonio, Hidalgo Manuel
The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21231, USA.
Crit Rev Oncol Hematol. 2006 Aug;59(2):150-8. doi: 10.1016/j.critrevonc.2006.01.005. Epub 2006 Jul 14.
The rapidly expanding knowledge of the pathogenesis of cancer at the molecular level is providing new targets for drug discovery and development. However, cancer is a complex disease characterized by multiple genetic and molecular alterations affecting cell proliferation, survival, differentiation and invasion among others. Many of these alterations represent potential targets for the development of new anticancer therapeutics. Because of the enormous biological diversity of cancer, it is unlikely that attacking only one of these targets will eliminate a malignant cell. Rather, strategic combination of agents targeted against the most critical of those alterations will be needed. Another approach that is rendering promising clinical results is the use of more unspecific agents that inhibit or modulate several relevant targets simultaneously. A deep biologic understanding of the relative relevance of each target in different cancer types will be key to efficiently direct those drugs to diseases more likely to benefit from its particular modulation profile.
在分子水平上对癌症发病机制的迅速扩展的认识正在为药物发现和开发提供新的靶点。然而，癌症是一种复杂的疾病，其特征是多种遗传和分子改变，影响细胞增殖、存活、分化和侵袭等。其中许多改变代表了新的抗癌治疗药物开发的潜在靶点。由于癌症具有巨大的生物学多样性，仅攻击这些靶点中的一个不太可能消除恶性细胞。相反，需要针对那些最关键改变的药物进行策略性组合。另一种取得了有前景临床结果的方法是使用更非特异性的药物，这些药物能同时抑制或调节多个相关靶点。对不同癌症类型中每个靶点的相对相关性有深入的生物学理解，将是有效地将这些药物导向更可能从其特定调节模式中受益的疾病的关键。
