Discovery of potential syringic acid (SA) derived "BH3 mimetics"

Despite incredible advancement made in recent years, treatment of cancer still remains the most challenging task for the mankind. The apoptotic cell death program serves as a natural barrier to tumor development. Evading this program is a hallmark of cancer and constitutes an important mechanism in therapeutic resistance. This prompted the development of novel anticancer strategies targeting apoptosis. The pro-apoptotic Bcl-2 protein BAX by itself is sufficient to initiate apoptosis in almost all apoptotic paradigms. Thus, compounds that can facilitate disruptive Bax insertion into mitochondrial membranes have potential as cancer therapeutics.Natural compounds have historically been a mainstay source of anticancer drugs. This book, therefore provides new ideas to discovery of natural compound based anticancer agents through virtual screening approach. Computational docking studies of BAX and proposed syringic acid analogs suggested the way to find potential target leads as anticancer agents. In silico mutation and comparative binding studies may provide a good idea to find "BH3 mimetics".