Synthetic Lethality in the Search for Novel Molecular Targets in Cancer Therapeutics

Abstract

　Cancer treatment methods based on suppressing the function of a specific target molecule that is mutated or overexpressed are defined as “molecular targeted therapy”. In molecular targeted therapy, the specific targets are identified in the drug discovery and treatment design stages. Many molecular targeted therapy methods are currently used for cancer treatment, and the group of molecular targeted drugs has grown far beyond the classical chemotherapeutic drug family. However, the design of targeted agents for certain molecules such as tumor suppressor genes, which also play a causative role in cancer, is complex. Here, I briefly review the history of molecular targeted drugs and introduce a search using synthetic lethal phenotypes as one method to identify molecular targeted drugs against tumor suppressor gene mutations.