Recent progress in apoptosis triggering facilitated by HeLa Studies

Abstract

Objective

Cancer is a leading cause of death globally, prompting numerous efforts to find effective treatments. HeLa cells, derived from Henrietta Lacks' cancerous squamous cells, have played a crucial role in cancer research due to their origin, resistance, and rapid growth. They are particularly useful for studying ways of cellular death triggering, or apoptosis, without an immune response. Thus, the objective of this paper was to review the latest publications on the subject of HeLa apoptosis so that a brief view to be available on the otherwise so extended subject.

Methodology

To provide a concise review of the extensive research on this topic, a search was conducted using the phrase "HeLa cells apoptosis triggering" on PubMed. The most relevant articles were selected and reviewed.

Results

Many different ways of achieving apoptosis of malignant cells were found, some of them caused by natural substances such as magnolol, resveratrol and luteolin and others by synthetic molecules. Aside the properties of the substances, the specificity towards the cancerous cells was obtained by nano-carriers targeted delivery.

Conclusions

Even though those articles prove that there are options in the direction of apoptosis triggering, there is still a long way to go before finding a cure for cancer and more studies to be conducted, improving the approaches as well as looking into the flaws of what has been already done.