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REVIEW article
Front. Pharmacol.
Sec. Pharmacology of Anti-Cancer Drugs
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fphar.2025.1562167
This article is part of the Research Topic Exploring Novel Resistance Mechanisms in Cancer Treatments through High-Throughput Screening and Multi-Omics Analysis View all articles
Targeting the Inhibitors of Apoptosis Proteins (IAPs) to combat Drug Resistance in Cancers
Provisionally accepted- 1 Hainan General Hospital, Haikou, China
- 2 Hubei University of Chinese Medicine, Wuhan, Hubei Province, China
- 3 The Fifth People’s Hospital of Hainan Province, Haikou, Hainan Province, China
Inhibitors of Apoptosis Proteins (IAPs) are a family of anti-apoptotic proteins that play a pivotal role in apoptosis in general but also as oncoproteins in cancer progression and, more importantly, drug resistance. IAPs enable cancer cells to evade programmed cell death and adapt to therapeutic stress by inhibiting pro-apoptotic caspase activity as well as modulating pivotal survival pathways.Recent advancements in targeting IAPs, particularly through the use of SMAC (second mitochondria-derived activator of caspase) mimetics and other small-molecule antagonists or inhibitors, have opened new avenues for overcoming drug resistance in cancers. The current review attempted to summarize the status quo of IAPs' role in promoting chemotherapeutic drug resistance in various cancer treatments and discuss the most recent development of IAP-targeting therapies, particularly small-molecule inhibitors including their combinational strategies to enhance the sensitivity or achieve synergism to existing therapeutics. Additionally, we also outline the challenges and offer future perspectives for optimizing IAP-targeted approaches to improve clinical outcomes.
Keywords: Drug Resistance, Cancer, Inhibitors of apoptosis proteins, inhibitors, Overcome
Received: 17 Jan 2025; Accepted: 21 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Ye, Zhuang, Li and Zhou. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Juan Li, Hubei University of Chinese Medicine, Wuhan, 430065, Hubei Province, China
Xin Zhou, The Fifth People’s Hospital of Hainan Province, Haikou, Hainan Province, China
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