ABSTRACT
Recently, the therapy of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, especially with the direct-acting antiviral agents (DAAs), has achieved many progresses. Although it is expected to cure HCV infection completely in the coming future, long-term application of DAAs will inevitably induce virus resistance, resulting in treatment failure. To solve this key problem, development of host-targeting agents (HTAs) emerges as one of effective strategies. HTAs targets the essential host factors for various stages of HCV life cycle, and thus has several advantages against HCV with reducing viral resistance, pan-genotypic antivirus, synergistic antiviral effects combined with known DAAs and decreasing side effects of drugs. This review summarized the recent progress of investigating HTAs in the preclinical and clinical study, to provide clues for the development of new anti-HCV drugs.
ABSTRACT
Advances in molecular biology have made it possible to understand the tumor biology of breast cancer at the molecular level and have revealed molecular targets for the therapy of breast cancer. Nowadays, targeting agents are used as mono-therapy or as combined therapy with other anti-cancer drugs for the treatment of breast cancer. Much more efforts is also being made in the development of better therapeutic agents targeting molecules having an important role in tumor biology. In this article, promising molecules for targeted therapy are reviewed for their roles in the pathophysiology and the treatment of breast cancer. We also introduce and summarize new preclinical agents, developed or on developing, with preliminary results from clinical trials. Given the progress currently being made, targeted therapy could become a main strategy for the treatment of breast cancer in the near future.