Fig. 4From: Repurposing of approved cardiovascular drugsCardiac glycoside-induced apoptosis in tumor cells. Cardiac glycosides bind to Na+-K+-ATPase and decrease the membrane potential and increase intracellular Na+ and Ca++ in certain human cancer cell lines, resulting in activation of calcineurin and transcriptional upregulation of Fas ligand. Cardiac glycosides also suppressthe expression of nuclear factor-kappaB and inhibit DNA topoisomerase II. All of these activities induce apoptosis in human cancer cellsBack to article page