Title:Antidepressants and Antipsychotic Agents as Repurposable Oncological Drug Candidates
Volume: 28
Issue: 11
Author(s): Michał Antoszczak, Anna Markowska, Janina Markowska and Adam Huczyński*
Affiliation:
- Department of Medical Chemistry, Faculty of Chemistry, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan,Poland
Keywords:
Psychiatric agents, drug development, anticancer activity, in vitro tests, in vivo studies, chemosensitizers.
Abstract: Drug repurposing, also known as drug repositioning/reprofiling, is a relatively new
strategy for the identification of alternative uses of well-known therapeutics that are outside
the scope of their original medical indications. Such an approach might entail a number of advantages
compared to standard de novo drug development, including less time needed to introduce
the drug to the market, and lower costs. The group of compounds that could be considered
as promising candidates for repurposing in oncology include the central nervous system
drugs, especially selected antidepressant and antipsychotic agents. In this article, we provide
an overview of some antidepressants (citalopram, fluoxetine, paroxetine, sertraline) and
antipsychotics (chlorpromazine, pimozide, thioridazine, trifluoperazine) that have the potential
to be repurposed as novel chemotherapeutics in cancer treatment, as they have been found
to exhibit preventive and/or therapeutic action in cancer patients. Nevertheless, although drug
repurposing seems to be an attractive strategy to search for oncological drugs, we would like
to clearly indicate that it should not replace the search for new lead structures, but only
complement de novo drug development.
