mda-7/IL-24: Exploiting Cancer's Achilles' Heel

Exploiting the Achilles’ heel of membrane trafficking in trypanosomes

Pathogenic protozoa are evolutionarily highly divergent from their metazoan hosts, reflected in many aspects of their biology. One particularly important parasite taxon is the trypanosomatids. Multiple transmission modes, distinct life cycles and exploitation of many host species attests to great prowess as parasites, and adaptability for efficient, chronic infection. Genome sequencing has begu...

Antagonizing XIAP-mediated caspase-3 inhibition. Achilles' heel of cancers?

In this issue of Cancer Cell, Schimmer et al. report the identification of small molecule antagonists of XIAP that overcome its inhibition of caspase-3. It was remarkable that the compounds directly induced cell death in tumor cells while having little toxicity on normal cells. This suggests that caspases are already activated in tumor cells, which is different from the caspase activation statu...

Cancer's new Achilles' heel?

Claims to the discovery of cancers Achilles’ heel are multiple, even clichéd. Analogies to this Greek myth usually refer to the fall of the undefeatable, yet the novelty behind the legend is that a seemingly immortal foe could be toppled by something so innocuous as his heel. This may be the case for cancer and a non-coding mitochondrial RNA that as yet has no known physiological function or me...

Ideology: Criminology's Achilles' Heel?

The Achilles ’ Heel of CyberDefense