Potential Drug Targets in the Death Pathway: Therapeutic Approaches in Apoptosis

The form of programmed cell death known as Apoptosis has become an intense focus of investigation in various fields including carcinogenesis and cancer therapy. It is a sequentially regulated suicidal programme where cells regulate certain enzymes including caspase 9 activation and cytochrome C release with apoptosis inducing factor (AIF). The Bcl-2 proteins also represent a promising target for modulating tumor cell sensitivity to Apoptosis. Disturbance of this regulatory pathway may lead to various diseases like autoimmune diseases, neurodegenerative diseases and cancers. Therefore, understanding the mechanisms for apoptosis signaling pathway will give us huge knowledge to enlighten the pathogenesis of various diseases including cancer, and will open new horizons to therapeutic approaches in drug designing.