Recent advances of mitochondrial cancer research and therapy: Prospects and challenges

Abstract

This review explores the potentials and drawbacks of mitochondria based cancer research. Present research on cancers cell is towards induction of apoptosis, using cocktail drugs, which increase efficacy of the anticancer drugs by delivering to mitochondrion either by use of nanotechnology or via conjugating drugs to synthetic polymeric molecule like Nano micelles loaded drug and liposomes having surface modified of DQAâ€PEG (2000)â€DSPE. Drugs are even successful in patients with multiple drug resistance and intrinsic drug resistance which has been the major challenge in the chemotherapy of cancer. These drugs show selective cytotoxicity of the drug towards cancerous cells. However, drawbacks of the present mitochondria based cancer research is the error prone data as well as the doubts regarding the relationship between mtDNA (mitochondrial DNA) mutations and carcinogenesis which does not give clear insight to the patient’s condition during cancer induction, initiation and progression and success of treatment.