Targeting Zinc(II) Signalling to Prevent Cancer

Zinc is an important element that is gaining momentum as a potential target for cancer therapy. In recent years zinc has been accepted as a second messenger that is now recognized to be able to activate many signalling pathways within a few minutes of an extracellular stimulus by release of zinc(II) from intracellular stores. One of the major effects of this store release of zinc is to inhibit a multitude of tyrosine phosphatases which will prevent the inactivation of tyrosine kinases and hence, encourage further activation of tyrosine kinasedependent signalling pathways. Most of these signalling pathways are not only known to be involved in driving aberrant cancer growth, they are usually the main driving force. All this data together now positions zinc and zinc signalling as potentially important new targets to prevent aggressive cancer growth.