Therapeutic Drugs and Natural Products: The Effect of Suppressing Heat Shock Proteins (Hsp) in Brain Tumors

Abstract

Brain tumors are common in the population, and approximately 17,000 new patients are diagnosed every year. Although there are advancements in conventional treatment, including surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, they have limited effectiveness for the patients with brain tumors. However, with recent developments of tumor biology, novel approaches discovering new agents or their combinations have been proposed. Heat shock proteins (HSP) serve as molecular chaperones and they play a prominent role in protein homeostasis. Expression level of HSP enhance under the stressful conditions and they protect the cells by assisting of protein folding. In addition, HSP have attracted a great interest as a potential anticancer target and the development of HSP inhibitors demonstrating treatment is promising for cancer. Several therapeutic drugs and natural products that target signaling pathways associated with HSP are being developed and the efficacy of these agents in brain tumors is investigated. Consequently, our chapter puts emphasis on application of HSP in the treatment of brain tumors and the potential of therapeutic drugs and/or natural products in these tumors. It is hoped that approaches discussed in this chapter will overcome the existing limitations in the treatment with brain tumors and lead to a better prognosis for the patients.