2. Content
• Apoptosis – what is it?
• Apoptosis vs necrosis
• Radiation vs chemotherapy
• Apoptosis vs mitosis
• Tumour hijacking apoptosis
• Therapeutic strategies
3. Apoptosis
“Apoptosis is a cell suicide mechanism
that enables metazoans to control cell
number in tissues and to eliminate
individual cells that threaten the
animal’s survival”
Ashkenazi, Science 1998
4. Inhibition of apoptosis underlies many
carcinogenic processes
• Growth in the absence of normal growth
signals
• Growth in the presence of growth
inhibitory factors
• Metastases
• Chemoresistance
• Promotion of angiogenesis
9. BH3 only “Trigger” proteins
Bik, Bim, Bid, Bmf, Puma, Noxa, Bad
Anti-apoptotic “Arbitrator” proteins
Bcl-2, BclXL, Bcl-w, A1, Mcl-1
“Killer” proteins
Bax and Bak
Bcl-2 gene family
10. Activation of initiator
caspases in apoptosome or DISC
Activation of executioner
caspases by active
initiator caspases
IAPS
Smac/Diablo
Demolition of the cell
P
P
P
P
L
S
L
L
L
L
L
L
L
S S
S
S
S
S S
Critical role of caspases
13. Cancer therapies can induce
apoptosis
• Irradiation
DNA strand breaks
Free radical formation
Ceramide (independent of DNA damage)
• Chemotherapy
DNA crosslinks
toxic effects
death receptor upregulation
24. BH3 mimetics
• Some function as death agonists directly
mimicking the activity of tBid
• Others have been synthesized on the
premise that they will inhibit the anti-
apoptotic function of Bcl-2 and Bcl-xL.
25. TRAIL ? Therapeutic agent
• TRAIL is tumour necrosis factor–related
apoptosis-inducing ligand
• TRAIL induces apoptosis independently of
p53
• TRAIL demonstrates preferential
apoptosis induction in tumour cells while
sparing most normal cells