NF-kB–p53 axis antagonism: A therapeutic opportunity in cancer treatment

• Author Details:   
• Ranjeet Kumar ^*
• Deepika Biswas

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P53 and NF-xB pathways play a crucial role in inflammatory regulation, cell proliferation, tumour suppression, cell apoptosis, synaptic plasticity, memory of cells, etc. These pathways often get crippled by mutation thereby leading to tumour formation and eventually cancer. P53 is a transcription factor which is often termed as the ‘guardian of genome’ since it regulates cell cycle. When the Tp53gene gets mutated the whole cell cycle is crippled leading to oncogenesis.NF-xB is a heterodimer (RelA/p65 + p50) transcription factor which regulates cell proliferation and plays a crucial role in inflammation. This study confirms cross talks between p53 and NF-xB in regulation of pro-autophagic protein expression. Some research also shows that RelA and p53 inhibit each other’s functioning as a transcription factor. Extensive research showed that the p53 protein might inhibit the expression of NF-xB complex by inducing p21; also, TNF-activated NF-xB might inhibit p53 functioning thereby exhibiting contradictory mediating responses. Hence this review showed that mutual antagonism of p53 and NF-xB pathways plays a crucial role in modern anti-cancer drug discovery.

Keywords: p53, NF-xB, Mutual antagonism, Cancer, Drug discovery.