Given NF-κB’s relevance in human diseases and the fact that many drugs interfere with NF-κB signaling, the NF-κB signaling pathway provides a highly attractive target for the therapeutic development. More than 700 inhibitors of the NF-κB activation pathway, including antioxidants, peptides, small RNA/DNA, microbial and viral proteins, small molecules, and engineered dominant-negative or constitutively active polypeptides have been described (Table 1). Several of these molecules act as general inhibitors of NF-κB activation, while other molecules target specific steps; some molecules possibly target multiple steps in the NF-κB pathway (Fig 3).
