A New, Compelling Reason to Target Hsp90 in Tumor Cells

The finding that hsp90, a "molecular chaperone" that shuttles proteins throughout cells and performs a critical role in the mitochondria of tumor cells could have a profound influence on the development of an emerging class of drugs. It may help explain the limited effectiveness of current hsp90 inhibitors, which do not get into the mitochondria. The authors of the paper describing the work show that an hsp90 inhibitor that does get into the mitochondria has profound cell-killing capabilities.