Recent Prospectives of Anticancer Histone Deacetylase Inhibitors

Abstract

Histone deacetylases (HDACs) are common targets for cancer therapy as they are expressed in many forms of cancers; several research studies have been introduced discussing the design of small molecules that target this abnormal epigenetic changes developed by HDACs in chromatin. In the past 10 years, HDAC inhibitors have emerged as important agents of interest in clinical trials for several types of cancers and other diseases. Due to the recent availability of a number of HDACIs into market as effective anticancer agents (like vorinostat, belinostat, panobinostat, romidepsin, chidamide and pracinostat), HDACIs are considered one of the promising targeted anticancer agents. The current review highlights the most recent chemical modifications of HDACIs including different caps, linkers and zinc binding groups and interestingly the dual acting or multi-targeted HDACIs.