Progress in the Research of Selective Histone Deacetylase Inhibitors

It is very important for acetylation and deacetylation of chromatin histone to regulate the gene transcription by histone deacetylase, which is closely related with tumor. OBJECTIVE The aim of this review is to discuss the possibility of a single HDAC family member as drug targets in cancer and their oncogenic potential in cancer disease. METHODS The first HDAC inhibitors have been evaluated in clinical trials and show activity against several cancer diseases. RESULTS However, these compounds don’t act selectively against most parts of HDAC family, and they show a lot of side effects in clinical phase I. CONCLUSION So the question in this field is to find the cancer relevant HDAC family members in the certain tumor and to design selective HDAC inhibitors, which target cancer cells but leave out normal cells.