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©The Author(s) 2017. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Biol Chem. May 26, 2017; 8(2): 102-107
Published online May 26, 2017. doi: 10.4331/wjbc.v8.i2.102
Published online May 26, 2017. doi: 10.4331/wjbc.v8.i2.102
Common therapeutic target for both cancer and obesity
Yie-Hwa Chang, Edward A. Doisy Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Doisy Research Center, St. Louis University Medical School, St. Louis, MO 63104, United States
Author contributions: Chang YH solely contributed to this paper.
Conflict-of-interest statement: None.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Yie-Hwa Chang, Associate Professor of Edward A. Doisy Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Doisy Research Center, St. Louis University Medical School, 1100 S. Grand Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63104, United States. changyh@slu.edu
Telephone: +1-314-9779256 Fax: +1-314-9972422
Received: December 5, 2016
Peer-review started: December 6, 2016
First decision: January 16, 2017
Revised: February 22, 2017
Accepted: March 12, 2017
Article in press: March 13, 2017
Published online: May 26, 2017
Peer-review started: December 6, 2016
First decision: January 16, 2017
Revised: February 22, 2017
Accepted: March 12, 2017
Article in press: March 13, 2017
Published online: May 26, 2017
Core Tip
Core tip: There were approximately 14 million new cancer cases worldwide each year and more than half of the population in the developed countries are overweight or obese. Obesity is responsible for nearly 25% of the relative contribution to cancer incidence, which ranks second only to tobacco use. It would be, therefore, highly desirable to have drugs that work for both cancer and obesity. In this article, the biological function of a common therapeutic target, methionine aminopeptidase-2, and the status of some of its inhibitors in pre-clinical and clinical trials for cancer and/or obesity were discussed.