Evolving therapeutic proteins to precisely kill cancer cells

Abstract

The established cancer treatment strategy in clinical setting is based on chemo and radiation therapy, having limitations due to severe side-effects and drug-resistance. Small molecule chemo-drugs target any fast-dividing cells irrespective of healthy or defective origin. As a result, a substantial amount of healthy tissue is also destroyed. Moreover, failure to recognize the heterogeneity of tumour tissue results in drug-resistance over the course of time. On the other hand, peptides and proteins actively target somatic changes that are signature to any specific tumour tissue. Development and metastasis of cancer cells require unique disruption/alteration of protein activity. Identification of those wild and cancerous genotypes and phenotypes is the key to establishing easy 'targets' for protein based targeted therapeutics. The approach is cytostatic and tissue specific, which reduces drug toxicity. Biopharmaceutical products based on proteins and peptides are slowly re-directing oncology from cytotoxic small molecular treatment approach to target oriented cytostatic strategy. This review focuses on current and upcoming peptide and protein-based precision therapeutics. At the same time, the study also shades light on the technological advancement in the field of protein and peptide-based therapeutics.