Disease mechanisms and emergence therapies: protein kinases and their inhibitors in cardiovascular diseases / 中国病理生理杂志

ABSTRACT

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are a major cause of morbidity and mortality in the world. So far, there has been substantial progress toward understanding the pathophysiology and treatment of CVDs. There are multiple cell signaling cascades, some of which are beneficial or compensatory and others deleterious. The balance between these pathways determines the outcome as a diseased or non-diseased state. Protein phosphorylation, which is mediated by enzymes, called protein kinases, is a major mechanism for transducing external stimuli into intracellular signals. Electively targeting of signaling pathways using protein kinase inhibitors would have a potential advantage over receptor blockers. By now, there are types of protein kinase inhibitiors available for treating several diseases. The success of kinase inhibitors in cancer treatment has strongly supported application in the treatment of CVDs. Here, we will review several kinds of protein kinases as potential targets for CVDs and some difficulty in identifying a protein kinase as a putative therapeutic target for CVDs.