Exploitation of pleiotropic actions of statins by using tumour-targeted delivery systems

Abstract

Statins are drugs traditionally used to lower cholesterol levels in blood. At concentrations 100- to 500-fold higher than those needed for reaching cholesterol lowering activity, they have anti-tumour activity. This anti-tumour activity is based on statins pleiotropic effects derived from their ability to inhibit the mevalonate synthesis and include anti-proliferative, pro-apoptotic, anti-angiogenic, anti-inflammatory, anti-metastatic actions and modulatory effects on intra-tumour oxidative stress. Thus, in this review, we summarise the possible pleiotropic actions of statins involved in tumour growth inhibition. Since the administration of these high doses of statins is accompanied by severe side effects, targeted delivery of statins seems to be the appropriate strategy for efficient application of statins in oncology. Therefore, we also present an overview of the current status of targeted delivery systems for statins with possible utilisation in oncology.

• Cancer
• pleiotropic actions
• statins
• targeted-delivery
• toxicity

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this article. This work was financially supported by UEFISCDI (Romanian Ministry of Education, Research and Innovation)-project code PN-II-PT-PCCA-2011-3.2-1060, contract number 95/2012 and by Babes-Bolyai University-project code GTC_34033/2013. This paper is a result of a post-doctoral research made possible by the financial support of the Sectoral Operational Programme for Human Resources Development 2007–2013, co-financed by the European Social Fund, under the project POSDRU/159/1.5/S/133391, project title ‘Doctoral and postdoctoral excellence programs for training highly qualified human resources for research in the fields of Life Sciences, Environment and Earth.