Histone deacetylase ( HDAC ) inhibitors are a new class of anti-cancer agents which play important roles in epigenetic or non-epigenetic regulation, including programmed cell death, and cell cycle arrest in cancer cells. Histone deacetylase inhibitors are either naturally occurring or they can be synthetically produced.
The HDAC inhibitors have been identified and further classified into four groups on the basis of their homology with yeast HDACs. Such inhibitors further induce different phenotypes in various transformed cells, including growth arrest, autophagic cell death or reactive oxygen species (ROS)-induced cell death. Histone deacetylase is an opposing class of enzyme, which tightly controls the equilibrium of histone acetylation. An imbalance in such activity has been associated with carcinogenesis and cancer progression.
HDAC inhibitors are mainly targeted in oncology based diseases such as lymphomas, acute myeloid leukemia, solid tumors, multiple myeloma, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma, colorectal cancer, non-small cell lung cancer etc. The use these inhibitors has been validated clinically in cancer patients which led to the approval of five marketed products including Faydak (panobinostat), Beleodaq (belinostat), Epidaza (Chiamide), Zolinza (vorinostat), and Istodax (romidepsin).
