Issue 37, 2021

Cancer therapeutic strategies based on metal ions

Abstract

As a necessary substance to maintain the body's normal life activities, metal ions are ubiquitous in organisms and play a major role in various complex physiological and biochemical processes, such as material transportation, energy conversion, information transmission, metabolic regulation, etc. Their abnormal distribution/accumulation in cells can interfere with these processes, causing irreversible physical damage to cells or activating biochemical reactions to induce cell death. Therefore, metal ions can be exploited against a wide spectrum of cancers with high efficiency and without drug resistance, which can effectively inhibit the growth of cancer cells by triggering biocatalysis, breaking the osmotic balance, affecting metabolism, interfering with signal transduction, damaging DNA, etc. This perspective systematically summarizes the latest research progress of metal ion-based anti-tumor therapy, and emphasizes the challenges and development directions of this type of therapeutic strategy, hoping to provide a general implication for future research.

Graphical abstract: Cancer therapeutic strategies based on metal ions

Article information

Article type
Perspective
Submitted
28 Jun 2021
Accepted
01 Sep 2021
First published
02 Sep 2021
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Chem. Sci., 2021,12, 12234-12247

Cancer therapeutic strategies based on metal ions

Y. Liu, Y. Wang, S. Song and H. Zhang, Chem. Sci., 2021, 12, 12234 DOI: 10.1039/D1SC03516A

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