| Popis: |
Neuroblastoma is a pediatric cancer that arises from neural crest cells failing to differentiate into mature neuronal cells. Differentiation therapy is one of the effective approaches to treat high-risk neuroblastoma. Developing new differentiation agents that can be used to treat neuroblastoma, especially for those resistant to currently available differentiation agents, is a major task in the field of neuroblastoma research. It has been known that neuroblastoma cell differentiation is tightly coupled with cell cycle progression. More importantly, multiple cell cycle regulating proteins have been shown to play critical roles in modulating neuroblastoma differentiation process, suggesting the potential of targeting these cell cycle regulators for differentiation therapy. Here we review the cell cycle regulators that have been recognized to function as independent regulators of cell differentiation, including cyclindependent kinase 4, cyclin D1, and the Cip/Kip family proteins, with a focus on their involvement of the differentiation of neuroblastoma cells. We also discuss the potential and approaches of discovering new cell cycle-regulating differentiation agents from common sources of anti-cancer agents such as extracts from plants. |
