The Regulation of Apoptosis by Peroxisome Proliferator Activated Receptors

Abstract: Induction of differentiation and apoptosis in cancer cells through ligands of nuclear hormone receptors is a novel and promising approach to cancer therapy. Peroxisome proliferator activated receptors (PPARs) are a family of related receptors implicated in a diverse array of biological processes， with 3 main isotypes known as PPARa， b and g. PPARs play important roles in diverse physiological process， including lipid metabolism， inflammatory response， status of oxidoreduction， cardiovascular diseases， diabetes and obesity. Except these， PPARs modulate cellular proliferation ， differentiation， and apoptosis. Emerging evidence indicate that PPARs and their ligands， especially PPARg， are indeed important for the modulation of apoptosis in a wide variety of tumor cell lines. However， significant species and tissue differences in the expression of PPARs complicate the exploration of pre-clinical test data to humans. This paper is attempted to review the recent advances of investigation into the relationship between PPARs and apoptosis， as well as the response to PPAR ligands seen in pre-clinical models of human cancer.

CSTR: 32200.14.cjcb.2004.04.0008