The potential for caspases in drug discovery.

Caspases are a family of proteases that are involved in the execution of apoptosis and the inflammatory response. A plethora of diseases occur as a result of the dysregulation of apoptosis and inflammation, and caspases have been targeted as a therapeutic strategy to halt the progression of such diseases. Hundreds of peptide and peptidomimetic inhibitors have been designed and tested, but only a few have advanced to clinical trials because of poor drug-like properties and pharmacological constraints. Although much effort has been focused on inhibiting caspases, there are many diseases that result from a decrease in apoptosis, thus activating procaspases could also be a viable therapeutic strategy. To this end, recent efforts have focused on the design of procaspase-3 activators. This review highlights the current progress in the rational design of both specific and pan-caspase inhibitors, as well as procaspase-3 activators.