Starvation-dependent differential stress resistance protects normal but not cancer cells against high-dose chemotherapy.

ABSTRACT: Strategies to treat cancer have focused primarily on the killing of tumor cells. Here, we describe a differential stress resistance (DSR) method that focuses instead on protecting the organism but not cancer cells against chemotherapy. Short-term starved S. cerevisiae or cells lacking proto-oncogene homologs were up to 1,000 times better protected against oxidative stress or chemotherapy drugs than cells expressing the oncogene homolog Ras2(val19). Low-glucose or low-serum media also protected primary glial cells but not six different rat and human glioma and neuroblastoma cancer cell lines against hydrogen peroxide or the chemotherapy drug/pro-oxidant cyclophosphamide. Finally, short-term starvation provided complete protection to mice but not to injected neuroblastoma cells against a hig

SUBMITTER: Raffaghello L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2448817 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature