Mitochondrial targets for chemotherapy

Mitochondrial targets for chemotherapy

Speaker: Catherine Brenner-Jan

Affiliation: University Versailles/St Quentin (CNRS UMR 8159)

Host: Helena Vieira-Animal Cell Technology Laboratory

Abstract:

Mitochondria have an essential role for cell survival as well as for the control of cell death via both apoptosis and necrosis. In recent years, mitochondria have emerged as promising cancer chemotherapy targets for two main reasons: (i) apoptosis inhibition of cell death is one of the hallmarks of cancer cells and (ii) numerous clinically-used anti-cancer drugs have been demonstrated to activate the mitochondrial pathway of apoptosis and to target directely the mitochondrion. After a brief overview of apoptosis pathways and recent advances in drug discovery, the presentation will focus on selected examples of mitochondrial targets (e.g. the adenine mitochondrial translocase (ANT)), cancers cells (e.g. melanomas), and chemotherapeutic agents (e.g. alkylating agents).