CUDC-101 overcomes arsenic trioxide resistance via caspase-dependent promyelocytic leukemia-retinoic acid receptor alpha degradation in acute promyelocytic leukemia

Insight in Quinazoline-based HDAC Inhibitors as Anti-cancer Agents

Cancer remains a primary cause of death globally, and effective treatments are still limited. While chemotherapy has notably enhanced survival rates, it brings about numerous side effects. Consequently, the ongoing challenge persists in developing potent anti-cancer agents with minimal toxicity. The versatile nature of the quinazoline moiety has positioned it as a pivotal component in the development of various antitumor agents, showcasing its promising role in innovative cancer therapeutics. This concise review aims to reveal the potential of quinazolines in creating anticancer medications that target histone deacetylases (HDACs).

Epigenetic regulation in hematopoiesis and its implications in the targeted therapy of hematologic malignancies

Hematologic malignancies are one of the most common cancers, and the incidence has been rising in recent decades. The clinical and molecular features of hematologic malignancies are highly heterogenous, and some hematologic malignancies are incurable, challenging the treatment, and prognosis of the patients. However, hematopoiesis and oncogenesis of hematologic malignancies are profoundly affected by epigenetic regulation. Studies have found that methylation-related mutations, abnormal methylation profiles of DNA, and abnormal histone deacetylase expression are recurrent in leukemia and lymphoma. Furthermore, the hypomethylating agents and histone deacetylase inhibitors are effective to treat acute myeloid leukemia and T-cell lymphomas, indicating that epigenetic regulation is indispensable to hematologic oncogenesis. Epigenetic regulation mainly includes DNA modifications, histone modifications, and noncoding RNA-mediated targeting, and regulates various DNA-based processes. This review presents the role of writers, readers, and erasers of DNA methylation and histone methylation, and acetylation in hematologic malignancies. In addition, this review provides the influence of microRNAs and long noncoding RNAs on hematologic malignancies. Furthermore, the implication of epigenetic regulation in targeted treatment is discussed. This review comprehensively presents the change and function of each epigenetic regulator in normal and oncogenic hematopoiesis and provides innovative epigenetic-targeted treatment in clinical practice.

Quinazoline Based HDAC Dual Inhibitors as Potential Anti-Cancer Agents

Cancer is the most devastating disease and second leading cause of death around the world. Despite scientific advancements in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer which can include targeted therapy, chemotherapy, endocrine therapy, immunotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery in some cases, cancer cells appear to outsmart and evade almost any method of treatment by developing drug resistance. Quinazolines are the most versatile, ubiquitous and privileged nitrogen bearing heterocyclic compounds with a wide array of biological and pharmacological applications. Most of the anti-cancer agents featuring quinazoline pharmacophore have shown promising therapeutic activity. Therefore, extensive research is underway to explore the potential of these privileged scaffolds. In this context, a molecular hybridization approach to develop hybrid drugs has become a popular tool in the field of drug discovery, especially after witnessing the successful results during the past decade. Histone deacetylases (HDACs) have emerged as an important anti-cancer target in the recent years given its role in cellular growth, gene regulation, and metabolism. Dual inhibitors, especially based on HDAC in particular, have become the center stage of current cancer drug development. Given the growing significance of dual HDAC inhibitors, in this review, we intend to compile the development of quinazoline based HDAC dual inhibitors as anti-cancer agents.

Hybrid Drugs-A Strategy for Overcoming Anticancer Drug Resistance?

Despite enormous progress in the treatment of many malignancies, the development of cancer resistance is still an important reason for cancer chemotherapy failure. Increasing knowledge of cancers' molecular complexity and mechanisms of their resistance to anticancer drugs, as well as extensive clinical experience, indicate that an effective fight against cancer requires a multidimensional approach. Multi-target chemotherapy may be achieved using drugs combination, co-delivery of medicines, or designing hybrid drugs. Hybrid drugs simultaneously targeting many points of signaling networks and various structures within a cancer cell have been extensively explored in recent years. The single hybrid agent can modulate multiple targets involved in cancer cell proliferation, possesses a simpler pharmacokinetic profile to reduce the possibility of drug interactions occurrence, and facilitates the process of drug development. Moreover, a single medication is expected to enhance patient compliance due to a less complicated treatment regimen, as well as a diminished number of adverse reactions and toxicity in comparison to a combination of drugs. As a consequence, many efforts have been made to design hybrid molecules of different chemical structures and functions as a means to circumvent drug resistance. The enormous number of studies in this field encouraged us to review the available literature and present selected research results highlighting the possible role of hybrid drugs in overcoming cancer drug resistance.

Advances in Epigenetic Cancer Therapeutics

Cancer has traditionally been hailed a genetic disease, dictated by successive genetic aberrations which alter gene expression. Yet, recent advances in molecular sequencing technologies, enabling the characterisation of cancer patient phenotypes on a large scale, have highlighted epigenetic changes as a hallmark of cancer. Epigenetic modifications, including DNA methylation and demethylation and histone modifications, have been found to play a key role in the pathogenesis of a wide variety of cancers through the regulation of chromatin state, gene expression and other nuclear events. Targeting epigenetic aberrations offers remarkable promise as a potential anti-cancer therapy given the reversible nature of epigenetic changes. Hence, epigenetic therapy has emerged as a rapidly advancing field of cancer research. A plethora of epigenetic therapies which inhibit enzymes of post-translational histone modifications, so-called 'writers', 'erasers' and 'readers', have been developed, with several epigenetic inhibitor agents approved for use in routine clinical practice. Epigenetic therapeutics inhibit the methylation or demethylation and acetylation or deacetylation of DNA and histone proteins. Their targets include writers (DNA methyltransferases [DNMT], histone acetyltransferases [HAT] and histone deacetylases [HDAC]) and erasers (histone demethylases [HDM] and histone methylases [HMT]). With new epigenetic mechanisms increasingly being elucidated, a vast array of targets and therapeutics have been brought to the fore. This review discusses recent advances in cancer epigenetics with a focus on molecular targets and mechanisms of action of epigenetic cancer therapeutics.

Dual-Target Inhibitors Based on HDACs: Novel Antitumor Agents for Cancer Therapy

Histone deacetylases (HDACs) play an important role in regulating target gene expression. They have been highlighted as a novel category of anticancer targets, and their inhibition can induce apoptosis, differentiation, and growth arrest in cancer cells. In view of the fact that HDAC inhibitors and other antitumor agents, such as BET inhibitors, topoisomerase inhibitors, and RTK pathway inhibitors, exert a synergistic effect on cellular processes in cancer cells, the combined inhibition of two targets is regarded as a rational strategy to improve the effectiveness of these single-target drugs for cancer treatment. In this review, we discuss the theoretical basis for designing HDAC-involved dual-target drugs and provide insight into the structure-activity relationships of these dual-target agents.