Agonists and Antagonists: Advancement of Targeted Drug for Anticancer

Dear Colleagues,

Cancer is a complex disease that demands targeted therapies for effective treatment. Unlike conventional chemotherapy, targeted cancer therapies use pharmacological agents that perturb the functions of specific major tumorigenic drivers to achieve the therapeutic effect of blocking tumor growth and metastasis. Recent studies reveal that many of those drivers play unique roles in specific cancer types, subtypes, or subsets of tumors of a given subtype and thus constitute highly attractive therapeutic targets for tailored cancer therapies. Advancements in development of therapeutics targeting those targets have provided benefits to patients of many types of cancer, including breast cancer, prostate cancer, lung cancer, colorectal cancer, leukemia, and lymphomas. However, de novo and acquired resistances to the therapeutics pose a major challenge. The advent of cancer genomics and epigenomics has provided opportunities in developing new and more effective therapeutics in combating cancer.

In this Special Issue, we focus on the identification, development, and/or further studies of small-molecule or peptide-like agents for targeted cancer therapies that directly target families of receptor or transporter proteins in different types of cancer, by acting as either agonists or antagonists of the targets. The families of receptors and transporters targeted by the agonists or antagonists include nuclear hormone receptors, membrane receptors that mediate protein kinase signaling, metabolic transporters, GPCRs, and other receptors that play important tumor-driver roles in cancer. We invite the submission of research and review articles on the identification, design, and development or further studies of small-molecules and peptide agents with agonist or antagonist activities for their cancer therapeutic potentials.

Prof. Dr. Hongwu Chen
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Molecules is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• antagonist
• agonist
• inhibitor
• combined treatment
• cell proliferation
• cell death
• apoptosis
• invasion
• metastasis
• signaling pathway
• gene expression