Cancer Signaling

This title includes a number of Open Access chapters. Cell signaling is a field that studies how cells communicate to control basic activities and respond to their environment. When looking specifically at cancer cells, researchers can gain a better understanding of cancer on a cellular level, an understanding that may have implications for developing new treatments. The current volume provides an overview of the field and how various cell biology techniques are used to better understand cancer on a cellular level. This easily accessible reference volume offers a comprehensive look at the field of cancer cell signaling. Edited by a researcher from Florida Atlantic University, Cancer Cell Signaling: Targeting Signaling Pathways Towards Therapeutic Approaches to Cancer is an authoritative and easy-to-use reference.

Unravelling the intricate cell signalling networks and their significance in cancer poses major intellectual challenge. Keeping this in mind, the book aims at understanding the mechanism of action of different proteins and their complexes in the cancer signalling pathways. Hence, the proposed book that comprises 20 chapters provides a comprehensive introduction on cell signalling, its alterations in cancer, molecules that have been popular targets as well as the ones that are emerging as targets. In addition, it discusses different forms of therapy that are coming up for its treatment. Other than that, a major portion of the book is focused on studying different disciplines at the interface of biology and other areas of science that are being used to understand cancer biology in depth.

At the moment, there is no dedicated book to summarize the roles, the significance, and potential therapeutic targeting of transcriptional factors from the perspective of signaling cascade, and thus, directly impacting the functionality of transcriptional factors in cancer. In addition, this book will offer a comprehensive basic and clinical science behind the functions of representative core transcriptional factors. These chapters will serve as a treasure for all those who have an interest in the basis, progression, and targeting of human cancer. Each chapter will be intended to provide comprehensive, up-to-date information by the leaders about the physiologic and pathologic roles of TFs in specific representative organ systems of prime importance. The book will consist of chapters that will give biomedical students, under and graduate students, basic sciences and clinical cancer fellows, residents and researchers, and oncology educators will get a thorough summary of the overall subject. The readers will be able to understand the important current information and views on specific TFs and its role in cancer in areas outside their own expertise or experience. A special emphasis will be also placed on the "classic" papers as well as perspectives on future directions for the field.

Cells respond to environmental cues through a complex and dynamic network of signaling pathways that normally maintain a critical balance between cellular proliferation, differentiation, senescence, and death. One current research challenge is to identify those aberrations in signal transd- tion that directly contribute to a loss of this division-limited equilibrium and the progression to malignant transformation. The study of cell-signaling m- ecules in this context is a central component of cancer research. From the knowledge of such targets, investigators have been able to productively advance many insightful hypotheses about how a particular cancer cell may misinterpret, or respond inappropriately to, growth regulatory cues in their environment. Despite these key insights, the rapidly evolving nature of cell signaling research in cancer has necessitated a continuous revision of these theoretical constructs and the updating of methods used in their study. One contemporary example of the evolution of this field is provided by an analysis of the Human Genome Project data, which reveal a previously unsuspected diversity in the multigene families encoding for most signaling pathway int- mediates. In assessing the usefulness of a particular methodological approach, therefore, we will need to keep in mind that there is a premium on those p- tocols that can be easily adapted for the analysis of multiple members within a gene family. Cancer Cell Signaling: Methods and Protocols brings together several such methods in cell signaling research that are scientifically grounded within the cancer biology field.

Cancer, which has become the second-most prevalent health issue globally, is essentially a malfunction of cell signaling. Understanding how the intricate signaling networks of cells and tissues allow cancer to thrive - and how they can be turned into potent weapons against it - is the key to managing cancer in the clinic and improving the outcome of cancer therapies. In their ground-breaking textbook, the authors provide a compelling story of how cancer works on the molecular level, and how targeted therapies using kinase inhibitors and other modulators of signaling pathways can contain and eventually cure it. The first part of the book gives an introduction into the cell and molecular biology of cancer, focusing on the key mechanisms of cancer formation. The second part of the book introduces the main signaling transduction mechanisms responsible for carcinogenesis and compares their function in healthy versus cancer cells. In contrast to the complexity of its topic, the text is easy to read. 32 specially prepared teaching videos on key concepts and pathways in cancer signaling are available online for users of the print edition and have been integrated into the text in the enhanced e-book edition.

One of the most exciting areas of cancer research now is the development of agents which can target signal transduction pathways that are activated inappropriately in malignant cells. The understanding of the molecular abnormalities which distinguish malignant cells from their normal counterparts has grown tremendously. This volume summarizes the current research on the role that signal transduction pathways play in the pathogenesis of cancer and how this knowledge may be used to develop the next generation of more effective and less toxic anticancer agents. Series Editor comments: "The biologic behavior of both normal and cancer cells is determined by critical signal transduction pathways. This text provides a comprehensive review of the field. Leading investigators discuss key molecules that may prove to be important diagnostic and/or therapeutic targets."

In recent years, increasing evidence has suggested that abnormal activation of signaling pathways is a critical event in cancer pathogenesis. In particular, activation of these pathways can lead to inappropriate cellular survival, proliferation, pluripotency, invasion, metastasis, and angiogenesis. Thus, understanding the mechanisms by which signaling pathways become subverted in a cancer cell can provide insight into critical events in cancer pathogenesis. Furthermore, as our ability to target specific molecular interactions advances, we now have the ability to design small molecules, protein therapeutics, and other forms of targeted therapies. By focusing on the specific molecular abnormalities in a cancer cell, these agents hold the potential to be much more effective and much less toxic than current cytotoxic therapies.

Cell signaling is a field that studies how cells communicate to control basic activities and respond to their environment. When looking specifically at cancer cells, researchers can gain a better understanding of cancer on a cellular level, an understanding that may have implications for developing new treatments. The current volume provides an overview of the field and how various cell biology techniques are used to better understand cancer on a cellular level. This easily accessible reference volume offers a comprehensive look at the field of cancer cell signaling. Edited by a researcher from Florida Atlantic University, Cancer Cell Signaling: Targeting Signaling Pathways Towards Therapeutic Approaches to Cancer is an authoritative and easy-to-use reference.